Le Viêt Nam, aujourd'hui - Tag - United States of AmericaL'actualité du Viêt Nam2019-01-21T16:59:07+07:00Guénin Patrickurn:md5:11602DotclearWhy Vietnam is best location for Kim-Trump summiturn:md5:b9b18f2537551dafa422ea3abfd7a53c2019-01-15T09:05:00+01:00Vietnam aujourd'huiNews in englishdiplomacyKoreaUnited States of America<p>The US-North Korea nuclear talks haven’t progressed since Donald Trump and
Kim Jong Un met in Singapore last June, mainly due to decades of deep enmity
and mistrust between the two countries.</p> <p>Holding their anticipated second meeting in Vietnam could enable the two
sides to overcome such hostility and distrust.</p>
<p>Judging by the comments from Washington and Pyongyang, as well as other
developments since the beginning of 2019, it’s almost certain that the US
president and North Korea’s leader will meet again in the coming months.</p>
<p>In his 2019 New Year speech, Kim expressed his willingness to see Trump
again “at any time.” Kim’s recent Beijing trip is also widely seen as a prelude
to his second encounter with the US president.</p>
<p>In comments made on January 6, Trump said the two sides are “negotiating a
location” for the meeting, adding that he would announce the chosen venue in
the “not-too-distant future.” It has even been reported that he proposed
holding the summit in Vietnam.</p>
<p>Indeed, over the last few days, the Southeast Asian nation has been touted
as a top candidate for the event, with some international media speculating
that the location could be Hanoi, the country’s capital, while others mentioned
its coastal city of Danang.</p>
<p>Actually, Vietnam had been suggested as a neutral location for the first
Trump-Kim meeting, which eventually took place in Singapore on June 12 last
year.</p>
<p>It is unsurprising that Vietnam was seen as a possible location for the
first Trump-Kim summit and is now emerging as the most likely venue for their
second meeting, because, both logistically and symbolically, it would be an
ideal site for such an event.</p>
<p>Like Singapore, Vietnam has diplomatic relations with both the US and North
Korea, with both nations having embassies in Hanoi. Also, it isn’t too far from
North Korea. The air travel distance between the two countries is about
4,000km, which is well within the flight range of Chammae-1, Kim’s personal
Ilyushin-62M jet. The North Korean ruler, who is wary of flying, can even
travel to Vietnam via mainland China. All of this makes it easy for US and
North Korean officials to arrange the event and, especially, for Kim to travel
to and from Vietnam.</p>
<p>Both Hanoi and Danang – the central port city that hosted world leaders,
including Trump, China’s Xi Jinping and Russia’s Vladimir Putin for the
Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in November 2017 – can provide
adequate facilities and security for the summit.</p>
<p>Vietnam isn’t, however, just a location of convenience for Trump and Kim to
hold talks about nuclear disarmament and US-North Korea ties in general. It’s
also a very symbolic place for such a high-stakes summit.</p>
<p>In March 2018, when Hanoi was seen as a potential location for the first
Trump-Kim summit, Vu Minh Khuong, associate professor at National Singapore
University’s Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, wrote that choosing
Vietnam’s capital “is highly symbolic and could, therefore, be a valuable
strategic move for both parties.”</p>
<p><strong>Hanoi is “ideal choice”</strong></p>
<p>In fact, he regarded Hanoi as “an ideal choice” because it could meet “three
criteria that are important to a successful outcome” – with one of these being
that the US and Vietnam – two former war enemies – had “reconciled <a href="http://blog.vietnam-aujourdhui.info/post/2019/01/15/their" title="their">their</a> past grievances” to form a cooperative and
successful partnership.</p>
<p>But Danang would also fit the bill. It could even be a more fitting venue.
The first conventional American combat unit deployed in Vietnam landed on a
beach in Danang in 1965. During the deadly conflict, termed the Vietnam War by
Americans and the American War by the Vietnamese, the US used its air base in
Danang to store Agent Orange, a defoliant chemical that has caused cancer,
birth defects and other serious health problems.</p>
<p>Yet, the once-poor and rural area, which was badly damaged by the war, is
now Vietnam’s third-biggest metropolis – a vibrant economic hub and a favorite
destination for foreign tourists and investors. Such a remarkable
transformation would be impossible if the ruling Communist Party of Vietnam
(CPV) had not opened up the country and established ties with Western nations,
notably the US.</p>
<p>In that sense, Vietnam would be an ideal place for the Trump-Kim summit,
whether it is held in Hanoi or Danang.</p>
<p>Tensions have significantly decreased since last June. The US has suspended
its joint military exercises with South Korea, while North Korea – or the
Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) – hasn’t conducted a missile and
nuclear test. However, fundamental disagreements persist.</p>
<p>In his 2019 New Year message, Kim warned that he will take a “new path” if
the US continues sanctions against his regime. But on January 6, Trump insisted
“the sanctions remain in full force <a href="http://blog.vietnam-aujourdhui.info/post/2019/01/15/%E2%80%A6" title="…">…</a> until
we have some very positive proof <a href="http://blog.vietnam-aujourdhui.info/post/2019/01/15/of%20Pyongyang%E2%80%99s%20denuclearization" title="of Pyongyang’s denuclearization">of Pyongyang’s denuclearization</a>.</p>
<p>Their talks didn’t advance simply because they lack mutual trust, which,
consequently, prevents either side from making the first move. Building trust
and making the first positive move toward each other after nearly seven decades
of deep enmity are, of course, very difficult.</p>
<p>But, by choosing Vietnam as the venue for their talks, Vu Minh Khuong
argued, Trump and Kim would show that they are serious about fundamentally
shifting toward one another. More precisely, for the North Korean leader, such
a choice would clearly signal that his reclusive and regressive country would
take preparatory and necessary steps to establish ties with the US and, indeed,
join the international community.</p>
<p>Some experts believe choosing Vietnam would invite a comparison between
North Korea and Vietnam and Kim doesn’t want to imitate another communist
country’s efforts to modernize its economy because the young dictator is wary
of outside investment, which he believes could weaken his grip on power.</p>
<p>Others say lauding Vietnam as a role model for North Korea is wrong because
there is no parallel between the two communist countries.</p>
<p>It’s true that, in many respects, North Korea now is not Vietnam in the
mid-1980s, when it began its Doi Moi – a reform process that led the then
deprived, isolated and regressive country to open up economically and, to a
lesser degree, politically, paving the way for it to establish ties with many
other countries, including the US. It’s also probably true that what Kim cares
about most is his regime’s security and survival, and opening up economically
could put his hereditary and totalitarian rule at risk.</p>
<p>Yet, the Vietnam-US rapprochement and the many positive outcomes it has
brought about shows that US-DPRK reconciliation is possible and advisable.
Indeed, it’s central to any progress in their nuclear talks and their overall
interaction.</p>
<p>The US is now a top partner of Vietnam. In 2015, Nguyen Phu Trong became the
first CPV chief to visit the White House, and during that historic trip, the
two former battleground foes, which remain fundamentally different from each
other in terms of political ideologies and systems, issued a Joint Vision
Statement, in which they pledged to respect “each other’s political systems,
independence, sovereignty, and territorial integrity.”</p>
<p>Though the Southeast Asian nation still trails behind many of its regional
peers in several aspects, the country is now in much better shape than it was
three decades ago. Vietnamese leaders don’t have to travel to Beijing to seek
advice and guidance on their domestic and foreign policies – or at least not as
much as Kim Jong-un has recently.</p>
<p>All this is possible primarily thanks to the courageous decision to
implement reforms that the CPV made at its 6th national congress in 1986.</p>
<p>To move his country out of destitution and isolation – and even to better
secure his dynasty – North Korea’s young leader should undertake a similar
endeavor.</p>
<p>Admittedly, if the survival of the communist regimes in Beijing and Hanoi
after their opening-up in the 1970s and 1980s, respectively – and the tragic
collapse of Iraq’s Saddam Hussein in 2003 and Libya’s Muammar Mohammed in 2011,
are any guide, it is economic development and good ties with the outside world
– rather than nukes – that guarantee the survival of an authoritarian
regime.</p>
<p><strong>International support</strong></p>
<p>Kim also needs to make such a move first in order to receive international
support. After all, it is his grandfather’s, father’s and now his own
regressive and aggressive policies that have led to North Korea’s international
isolation and sanctions. The sooner he does it, the easier and the better it
will be for his people and regime.</p>
<p>It was widely agreed that Vietnam’s 1986 Doi Moi and its normalization of
ties with the US in 1995 helped to transform the country. But many people
believe that if the CPV leadership had made such moves earlier, the country
would now be much better.</p>
<p>There seem to be some positive (albeit very vague) signs that Pyongyang may
realize that it needs to change.</p>
<p>Early last month, North Korean Foreign Minister Ri Yong-ho made a four-day
trip to Vietnam, which South Korea’s Yonhap News Agency described as a
fact-finding mission to learn about Hanoi’s Doi Moi. During his meeting with
Ri, Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc also said his country was
willing to share its reform experience with Pyongyang.</p>
<p>And if Kim accepts Trump’s reported proposal to meet him in Vietnam in the
coming months, that would be the clearest hint yet that he will take his
country in that direction.</p>
<p>By Xuan Loc Doan - Asia Times - January 15, 2019</p>Vietnam tested by multinationals seeking trade war detour to avoid US tariffs on Chinaurn:md5:6f7b01442775cd5886e3f7ecc7af5d392018-12-26T17:01:00+01:00Vietnam aujourd'huiNews in englishChinatradeUnited States of America<p>It looked like a one-off case in late 2016 when The European Anti-Fraud
Office determined that certain organic coated steel products that originated in
China had been shipped through Vietnam to avoid anti-dumping duties.</p> <p>The fraud unit advised nine European countries on how to recover around €8.2
million (US$9.31 million) in anti-dumping and other import duties that it said
had been “evaded,” according to a spokeswoman.</p>
<p>But the idea of shipping through a third country to avoid tariffs has
flourished in recent months due to the trade war between the United States and
China, and multiple companies producing products in China are exploring Vietnam
to find out how they might do so.</p>
<p>To do this, they are actively checking whether they can legally re-label
products made in China as made in-Vietnam goods under different product
headings or even by just sending them to Vietnam for a simple transfer to the
United States, several businesspeople and a foreign diplomat said.</p>
<p>“A lot of our clients are asking whether they can basically transit goods
through Vietnam, so taking shoes and bringing them through Vietnam and then
exporting them to the United States,” said Maxfield Brown, senior associate
with Dezan Shira &amp; Associates in Ho Chi Minh City.</p>
<p>“The most popular follow-up question to ‘can we ship goods via Vietnam’ is
whether we can reclassify our products and will the US government notice, and
the answer is ‘yes’. As the trade war goes on, the chances of you getting
caught in the net are pretty high.”</p>
<p>Multinationals, many headquartered in developed parts of Asia, have examined
Vietnam with particular intensity since September when the United States levied
tariffs on US$200 million of exports from China, the largest single move in the
trade conflict hatched this year under US President Donald Trump.</p>
<p>Before the trade war, Vietnam was attractive to foreign investors because of
its cheap labour, pro-business government policies and proximity to China, with
the potential to now avoid US tariffs an extra incentive.</p>
<p>Vietnam’s foreign direct investment reached US$3.6 billion in the second
quarter of 2018, up from US$3.1 billion in the first and well above the US$150
million in the first quarter of 2002.</p>
<p>Business analysts in the financial centre of Ho Chi Minh City said the US
government is closely watching a handful of sectors in Vietnam for any goods
that originate in China.</p>
<p>“The idea that the US might fall for that is pretty naive, and allowing that
to happen is likely to get Vietnam in more trouble as a result,” said Kevin
Snowball, chief executive officer with PXP Vietnam Asset Management in Ho Chi
Minh City.</p>
<p>Manufacturers that simply rent a warehouse in Vietnam, instead of buying
property and installing production equipment, will be suspected of transiting
goods from China or “laundering the label” to change a product’s description
before export, said Tai Wan-ping, international business professor at Cheng
Shiu University in Taiwan.</p>
<p>“If they just rent a warehouse, you’ve got to imagine it’s fake. They’ll
just pass <a href="http://blog.vietnam-aujourdhui.info/post/2018/12/26/the%20products" title="the products">the products</a> on to
America,” said Tai, who specialises in Vietnam and believes some of the
offending companies to be Taiwanese.</p>
<p>For example, some steel coil shipped to the United States from China via
Vietnam showed little value added, said Fiachra MacCana, research head at stock
brokerage company Ho Chi Minh City Securities.</p>
<p>The US embassy in Hanoi declined to comment, but in May the US Commerce
Department announced tariffs of at least 39 per cent on imports of corrosion
resistant and cold-rolled flat steel from Vietnam due to suspicion that it had
been produced elsewhere.</p>
<p>The value of imported cold-rolled steel shipped from Vietnam to the United
States has risen from US$9 million to US$215 million after the US government
levied anti-dumping penalties on China, while the value of corrosion resistant
steel imports has grown from US$2 million to US$80 million.</p>
<p>Vietnam has a US$35.8 billion trade surplus with the United States.</p>
<p>Exporters from most countries now pay a 25 per cent tariff on steel shipped
to the United States, and in September, the US government included steel goods
from China in a round of 10 per cent tariff increases.</p>
<p>Companies hoping to avoid tariffs against China should do the “correct
amount” of additional value-added manufacturing in Vietnam so that the United
States considers the good as Vietnamese, said Dezan Shira &amp; Associates’
Brown.</p>
<p>Par Ralph Jennings- The South China Morning Post - December 25, 2018</p>Orange County Vietnam war refugees fear deportation under Trump administrationurn:md5:677b84ce3cc1b8654f3c18d80f1b2a642018-12-15T17:49:00+01:00Vietnam aujourd'huiNews in englishLittle SaigonUnited States of AmericaViet Kieu<p>Concern is growing in the country's largest Little Saigon, which is nestled
in Orange County, over the possibility of deportation.</p> <p>More than 195,000 Vietnamese people live in Little Saigon which extends
through Garden Grove, Westminster and Santa Ana.</p>
<p>After reports the Trump administration is reinterpreting a 2008 agreement
between Vietnam and the U.S., which protects immigrants who arrived before 1995
from removal orders, many in the community are wondering what will happen
next.</p>
<p>For more than 20 years, Tung Nguyen has called Orange County home. Nguyen
and his family came to Little Saigon in the early 90s as refugees of the
Vietnam War.</p>
<p>&quot;There was a lot of problems and struggles my family had to go through
living in Vietnam at the time,&quot; he said.</p>
<p>At 16, Nguyen was involved in a fatal stabbing. He said he was not the one
to stab the victim, but he called his involvement a mistake that he regrets. He
was sentenced to 25 years in prison.</p>
<p>After serving 18 years, he was pardoned by the governor, but immediately
faced a deportation order - and it's one he is still fighting.</p>
<p>&quot;They're being targeted, for crimes that was decades old,&quot; Nguyen said.
&quot;These are not criminals, these are community members.&quot;</p>
<p>Nguyen is talking about himself and others like him who fear removal orders
from the administration.</p>
<p>A spokeswoman from the Department of Homeland Security issued a statement
regarding the reports.</p>
<p>&quot;We have 7,000 convicted criminal aliens from Vietnam with final orders of
removal - these are non-citizens, who during previous administrations were
arrested, convicted, and ultimately ordered removed by a federal immigration
judge. It's a priority of this administration to remove criminal aliens to
their home country,&quot; it said.</p>
<p>Tania Pham is Nguyen's attorney, who is now receiving lots of calls from
refugees living in the Orange County area.</p>
<p>&quot;They're all U.S. citizens, and they have re-established their lives since
they committed those offenses and now they're very anxious and worried,&quot; Pham
said.</p>
<p>Pham, other attorneys and activists said they are receiving support from all
over the country to defend these immigrants.</p>
<p>Nguyen is imploring the president to leave the agreement alone.</p>
<p>&quot;I just beg this administration to see the human part of this whole thing.
Don't change it,&quot; he said.</p>
<p>By Greg Lee - ABC Inc., KABC-TV Los Angeles - December 13, 2018</p>Vietnam 'interested' in hosting next US-North Korea summiturn:md5:567f0d1d113ba5d13e02dfdda142cdb72018-12-15T16:47:00+01:00Vietnam aujourd'huiNews in englishdiplomacyKoreaUnited States of America<p>Vietnam has reportedly expressed an interest in hosting the second proposed
summit between Kim Jong-un and Donald Trump.</p> <p>High ranking Vietnamese officials told the South Korean government that they
are interested in hosting the meeting between the North Korean and US leaders
if it goes ahead, a South Korean official told CNN.</p>
<p>The same government source repeated earlier claims that North Korean
officials had informally expressed regret that a Vietnamese national was
charged with killing Kim Jong Nam, the estranged half brother of Kim Jong-un,
although clarified that this was not an apology or admission of
responsibility.</p>
<p>North Korea has vehemently denied it was behind Kim’s assassination in Kuala
Lumpur airport in February 2017.</p>
<p>Vietnamese citizen Doan Thi Huong, 29, and an Indonesian woman Siti Aisyah,
25 are currently standing trial for the murder after they smeared lethal VX
nerve agent on his face. Their defence lawyers claim they were duped by North
Korean intelligence into believing they were taking part in a TV gameshow.</p>
<p>The incident shook Vietnam’s ties with North Korea but the latest reports
would suggest that there has been a thaw, in particular as they come on the
back of a high-profile visit to the Vietnamese capital, Hanoi, by Ri Yong-ho,
the North Korean foreign minister.</p>
<p>Vietnam was previously suggested as a neutral location for the first meeting
of the North Korean and US leaders in June.</p>
<p>Writing for the East Asia Forum in March, Vu Minh Khuong, associate
professor at Singapore University’s Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy,
described Hanoi as a symbolic choice as the US and Vietnam had reconciled past
grievances, transforming the Southeast Asian nation’s economy.</p>
<p>“Hanoi as a city reflects how, in only one generation, diplomatic relations
can be transformed from hostile to collaborative and mutually supportive,” he
wrote.</p>
<p>In the end, Singapore was chosen as the venue for the historic summit.</p>
<p>The timing for a second encounter between Kim and President Trump is
currently on hold amid stalled talks over the question of North Korea’s nuclear
disarmament.</p>
<p>North Korea on Thursday blamed the US for the delay in progress, reported
Bloomberg news, citing comments from the North’s state newswire, KCNA.</p>
<p>Pyongyang accused Washington of not taking corresponding measures to its
“excessive gifts” to the US in its denuclearisation process.</p>
<p>“How can a negotiation train move when North Korea is the only one moving
and the US is standing still,” said KCNA. “We are waiting with patience.”</p>
<p>By Nicola Smith - The Telegraph (.uk) - 14 December 2018</p>CP’s of Vietnam and USA meeturn:md5:6e4d7168759c5473c96cd8f7b34a5da22018-12-09T18:01:00+01:00Vietnam aujourd'huiNews in englishCommunist PartyUnited States of America<p>The Communist Party USA enjoys a warm and special relationship with the
Communist Party of Vietnam (CPV) dating back to the American war in Vietnam and
the role the CPUSA played in building solidarity, the anti-war movement and
supporting the normalization of relations afterward.</p> <p>So, it’s always a special occasion when the two parties meet.</p>
<p>A delegation from the CPV was in the U.S. at the end of November and made
sure their working visit to Washington D.C. included a get-together with the
CPUSA on Nov. 30.</p>
<p>Trương Thi Mai, a member of the political bureau of the CPV and chair of the
committee on mass mobilizations, led the delegation. Ambassador to the U.S., Ha
Kim Ngoc, three provincial party chairs and several other representatives,
joined her.</p>
<p>Comrade Mai is one of the highest-ranking women leaders in Vietnam. All
three provincial chairs were women, who now make up 25 percent of government
elected officials.</p>
<p>The CPUSA delegation included national chair John Bachtell,
secretary-treasurer Roberta Wood, Chuey G, and international secretary Emile
Schepers.</p>
<p>The CPV delegation was in the U.S. and Canada to meet government and
political leaders and promote bilateral relations, trade, and cultural
exchanges. In the U.S. they met with members of Congress, the Departments of
State and Labor, and community, civic and student leaders.</p>
<p>Comrade Mai shared with the CPUSA delegation the latest achievements of the
Vietnamese people. They include an increase of 6.8 percent in economic GDP this
past year, and growth in trade, which has resulted in exports exceeding
imports. Meanwhile, unemployment has fallen to 4 percent, and poverty has
dropped from 58 percent in 1975 to 5 percent today.</p>
<p>Mai said the party was taking steps to strengthen itself and its role in
society, expanding the participation of people in all aspects of economic and
political life. It is engaged in an anti-corruption campaign which has resulted
in the removal of some party leaders from office.</p>
<p>The CPUSA shared analysis of the 2018 election victories and the need for
continued solidarity against the Trump administration and global alt-right,
fulfillment of U.S. obligations to address the destruction from the war
especially the effects of agent orange, and the organization of more people to
people exchanges particularly between the U.S. and Vietnamese labor
movements.</p>
<p>By John Bachtell - the Communist Party of USA - December 6, 2018</p>How Vietnam's new leader could strengthen ties to Chinaurn:md5:ddd4cc6fa5b9d668977f8b6cd233f50d2018-11-01T20:04:00+01:00Vietnam aujourd'huiNews in englishChinadiplomacyUnited States of America<p>Nestled in Hanoi’s leafy French Quarter, under the shadow of its
neoclassical Opera House, is a tiny gallery that exclusively stocks Vietnamese
propaganda art.</p> <p>The interior is piled high with posters—all square jaws, oversize clenched
fists and primary colors—supporting the revolutionary hero Ho Chi Minh, who
founded the Communist Party and led the resistance to French and American
forces during the 1950s and ’60s. Slogans rouse patriots to “Remember Uncle Ho
on this victorious day” and “Crush the Yankee imperialists.”</p>
<p>“Today Vietnam has a new President,” says Phan Duk, who opened the gallery
five years ago. “But I forget his name.” That’s not unusual. Unlike Ho,
Vietnam’s recent leaders have shied from the limelight. For almost half a
century, they have jettisoned the cult of personality in favor of ruling from
the shadows, with power shared between several top government roles.</p>
<p>That changed on Oct. 23 when Communist Party General Secretary Nguyen Phu
Trong also assumed the role of President, after the incumbent died in
September. In a televised ceremony, the silver-haired Trong, 74, vowed to be
“absolutely loyal to the nation, people and the constitution.” His
ascent—-confirmed by 99.8% of lawmakers, with just one token dissenter—makes
him the first person to hold both titles since Ho in the 1960s. Of Vietnam’s
traditional “four-pillar” top positions designed to diffuse power, Trong, a
Hanoi native who became General Secretary in 2011, now holds half.</p>
<p>Trong, a party ideologue, has close ties with communist leaders in China,
whose regional influence has grown as its $1 trillion Belt and Road Initiative
has helped fund infra-structure projects in countries across Asia and beyond.
Washington’s influence on the region, by contrast, has waned under President
Donald Trump, especially after he withdrew the U.S. from the Trans-Pacific
Partnership (TPP) intended to reduce regional reliance on Beijing.</p>
<p>Vietnam is playing a growing role in the U.S. Indo-Pacific strategy to
counter Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s attempt to recapture “center stage in the
world.” In October, en route to Vietnam for his second visit this year, Defense
Secretary Jim Mattis condemned Beijing’s “predatory economic behavior” against
smaller nations. But Trump’s “America first” approach to foreign policy has
weakened regional alliances. “Standing up to China is even more difficult for
Vietnam under Trump than it has been,” says Carlyle Thayer, emeritus professor
at the University of New South Wales in Australia.</p>
<p>Although Vietnam’s economy is among the best performing in Asia, with GDP up
6.8% year on year in the second quarter of 2018, it relies heavily on trade
with China. Bilateral trade is predicted to reach $100 billion, according to
Vietnamese state media. Last year it had a $22.76 billion trade deficit with
China, one that the TPP would have helped offset. Yet after thousands of years
of subjugation, a virulent Sinophobia grips most of Vietnamese society. The two
nations last fought a border war in 1979. Animosity has swelled alongside
China’s growing assertiveness, especially over competing claims in the South
China Sea.</p>
<p>With that in mind, whether Washington can recruit Hanoi to its cause is a
bellwether for other countries in the region seeking to balance China’s rise by
reinforcing ties with the world’s pre-eminent superpower.</p>
<p>Back in 2016, former U.S. President Barack Obama achieved a public relations
coup when he sat down at a humble Hanoi restaurant with late celebrity chef
Anthony Bourdain for bun cha, a fragrant noodle dish of grilled pork belly.
Today the backroom table where they ate is enshrined in a glass cube, and
“Combo Obama”—including a Hanoi beer—is the top choice on the menu.</p>
<p>The paradox of Vietnam is that its leaders see Beijing’s authoritarianism as
a governance model to replicate while its people remain pathologically wary of
China’s ambitions, preferring better relations with the West. Obama’s visit and
lifting of a ban on selling American weaponry to Hanoi in May 2016 helped boost
rapprochement between the former foes. On March 5, Vietnam welcomed the first
U.S. aircraft carrier, the U.S.S. Carl Vinson, to dock since the end of the
Vietnam War. Washington is also spending hundreds of millions of dollars on
cleanup programs for contamination caused by Agent Orange.</p>
<p>Vietnam is also rebranding itself as a Western-friendly tech hub. At a
co-working space in central Hanoi, dozens of tech and media workers hammer at
laptops, flanked by dwarf papaya and French windows. Here, in what some call
the “Silicon Valley of Southeast Asia,” programmers can be hired for a fifth of
the cost of the U.S. or Singapore. According to government figures, the country
attracted $35.88 billion in foreign direct investment capital last year, up 44%
from 2016.</p>
<p>This outside investment is at risk, however, as a new cybersecurity law next
year will tighten control of tech companies, requiring firms like Facebook and
Google to store customers’ personal data locally, sparking privacy concerns. It
mirrors a law already introduced in China, showing that Vietnamese policymakers
are often happy to follow Beijing’s authoritarian path. Trong in particular
values better ties with China. He has sent young cadres to China for exchange
programs, and has emulated Xi by pursuing a sweeping anti-corruption campaign,
which has netted top figures from business, the military and within the
Communist Party.</p>
<p>Vietnam’s human-rights record also echoes China’s approach to dissent.
According to Human Rights Watch, Vietnam was jailing at least 119 prisoners of
conscience as of January. In October, dissident blogger Nguyen Ngoc Nhu Quynh,
known as Mother Mushroom, was forced into exile in the U.S. after being
incarcerated for two years.“How can I think the new President will give us more
freedom?” asks dissident singer Mai Khoi, who has been harassed and evicted
because of her antigovernment lyrics. “If we get more freedom, it’s only
because we fight for it.”</p>
<p>Yet the issue that seems to bring people onto the street is still perceived
encroachment on sovereignty by China. William Nguyen, 33, a Yale graduate from
Texas, was arrested June 10 in Ho Chi Minh City at a protest against 99-year
leases in special economic zones likely to be dominated by Chinese firms. For
five weeks, he was held in the infamous Chi Hoa Prison, consisting of eight
cellblocks circling a central courtyard with a single 20-m-high watchtower. “It
was a seven-hour rotation of angry men screaming,” Nguyen tells TIME of his
initial two-day interrogation, arms and feet shackled to a metal bar, during
which he was allowed up only for toilet breaks and meals.</p>
<p>Vietnam has never rolled over when its sovereignty has been challenged. It
has been particularly outspoken when it comes to Beijing’s militarization of
rocks and reefs in the strategic South China Sea, through which passes almost a
third of all maritime trade. Violent demonstrations swept Vietnam in 2014
following China’s deployment of an oil rig in the disputed waters, with at
least 21 deaths as some 100,000 protesters targeted Chinese-owned businesses.
These disputed waters are an area where Hanoi’s priority aligns clearly with
Washington’s. “We remain highly concerned with continued militarization of
features in the South China Sea,” Mattis told reporters on his flight to Ho Chi
Minh City.</p>
<p>Elsewhere in Vietnam’s foreign policy, however, there are hurdles to
rapprochement with the U.S. Vietnam is governed by the “three no’s” policy: no
military alliances, no foreign bases in Vietnam and no reliance on another
country for its defense. It has also mainly purchased Russian arms since the
Cold War and in September placed a $1 billion order for assorted weaponry.</p>
<p>This puts Vietnam in contravention of the 2017 Countering America’s
Adversaries Through Sanctions Act, which is aimed chiefly at penalizing the
Kremlin over the Ukraine and Syria conflicts and the 2016 U.S. election. But in
line with its growing strategic importance, Hanoi was granted a waiver (as were
other U.S.-friendly nations, like Indonesia and India). Still, Vietnam nixed
joint exercises between its navy and the U.S. Marine Corps, ostensibly in
reaction to Washington’s criticism of the deal.</p>
<p>“Vietnam welcomes the U.S. taking a stronger line with China but can’t stand
shoulder to shoulder with us,” says a senior U.S. diplomat, speaking to TIME on
condition of anonymity. “Vietnam can never be an American ally.”</p>
<p>That doesn’t resonate with gallery owner Duk, who only sees young Vietnamese
who loathe China and want to study in the West. “Only foreigners buy these
posters now,” he says with a shrug. “Not even old people want to remember this
history.” But for the Communist Party, the key strategy articulated in the
posters remains constant: self-reliance, keeping both friend and foe at arm’s
length. That is unlikely to change under Trong. The system stays in place even
as its art fades away.</p>
<p>By Charlie Campbell - Time - October 31, 2018</p>Vietnam emerges as key beneficiary of trade warurn:md5:6e13293faa4a37a33ac3093e239c0fc52018-10-30T08:53:00+01:00Vietnam aujourd'huiNews in englishChinaeconomytradeUnited States of America<p>US and Chinese companies weigh Southeast Asia as new supply base</p> <p>Vietnamese companies are emerging as key winners of the trade war between
the U.S. and China, according to a new survey of companies from the two
nations.</p>
<p>Both American and Chinese companies participating in the survey, published
on Monday by the Guangzhou-based American Chamber of Commerce in South China,
said that as a result of the trade conflict, they have been losing market
share, especially to companies from Vietnam.</p>
<p>Chinese companies reported also losing sales equally to companies from
India, the U.S. and South Korea. For American companies by contrast, Germany
and Japan were the next keenest rivals.</p>
<p>Since July, U.S. President Donald Trump has imposed punitive tariffs on $250
billion worth of annual Chinese imports to push demands for Beijing to change
key elements of its industrial policy. Chinese leaders have responded with new
tariffs on $60 billion worth of U.S. exports.</p>
<p>A majority of both U.S. and Chinese respondents to the AmCham survey
reported already feeling a negative impact from the tariffs, though the share
of American companies agreeing with this was significantly higher than among
their Chinese counterparts. The respondents identified a reduction in profits
as the top effect of the trade conflict, though only 20% of the 219
participating companies said the sales impact was more than $10 million.</p>
<p>Nevertheless, with the potential for more tariffs looming, most survey
participants, which was conducted Sept. 21 to Oct. 10, said that they are
looking at shifting production, assembly or sourcing of supplies to third
countries, with Southeast Asia as the leading choice.</p>
<p>Some companies are already putting such plans into motion. Panasonic, for
example, is moving production of car electronics from China to Thailand,
Malaysia and Mexico. China's GoerTek, which assembles wireless earphones for
Apple, has notified suppliers that it intends to relocate some of its
production to Vietnam. Chinese polyester producer Zhejiang Hailide New Material
is investing $155 million in a factory in Vietnam with an eye toward U.S.
exports.</p>
<p>Close to half of the companies in the AmCham survey reported feeling a trade
impact beyond tariffs from the U.S.-China confrontation. For example, 44% said
that customs clearance for their shipments had slowed while 38% said that
inspections had increased and that approval for licenses was taking longer.</p>
<p>The survey largely echoed the findings of a similar one conducted a few
weeks earlier involving about 430 members of the American chambers of commerce
in Beijing and Shanghai. The biggest difference was that nearly two-thirds of
respondents to the earlier survey said they had no plans to shift manufacturing
out of China despite the new tariffs.</p>
<p>Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping are expected to meet next month on
the sidelines of the Group of 20 summit in Argentina, but few expect a
breakthrough soon on the trade conflict.</p>
<p>In the AmCham South China survey, more than half of the participants said
they expected the impact of the trade war to last for at least another year. Of
the U.S. participants, 54% said that Trump's tariffs will not have any benefit
for their company or result in an improved business environment. Among Chinese
companies, the most common view of the tariffs is that they will &quot;speed up
China's economic transformation and upgrading.&quot;</p>
<p>The Asian Development Bank recently trimmed its 2019 growth forecast for
emerging Asia to 5.8% from 5.9% due to the trade conflicts while noting that
the impact does not hurt all countries evenly &quot;as trade is redirected within
global supply chains to economies producing similar goods, benefiting in
particular Southeast Asia.&quot;</p>
<p>By Coco Liu - Nikkei Asian Review - October 29, 2018</p>Vietnam: why blogger Mother Mushroom went freeurn:md5:aba21d3878791efc173595d261753b142018-10-24T08:54:00+02:00Vietnam aujourd'huiNews in englishdiplomacyhuman rightsUnited States of America<p>During US Secretary of Defense James Mattis’ two-day visit to Vietnam last
week, the Communist Party of Vietnam (CPV) quietly released the high-profile
dissident blogger known as ‘Mẹ Nấm,’ or Mother Mushroom, on the condition of
her exile to the United States.</p> <p>While Mattis’ trip and the CPV’s decision to release Mother Mushroom each
indicate deepening US-Vietnam ties in different ways, the episode reveals more
about Hanoi’s insecurities than any political awakening or relaxation of its
repressive security apparatus.</p>
<p>Mother Mushroom was arrested on charges of spreading propaganda against the
state under Article 88 of Vietnam’s Penal Code and gained prominence for
criticising the government’s mismanagement of the Formosa steel plant toxic
spill in Ha Tinh province on her blog in 2016. She had previously written
disparagingly of the government, but found herself in the spotlight of the
CPV’s dragnet when the Formosa controversy attracted weeks of protests and
public outrage.</p>
<p>At first, fish began washing up dead along the coastline of Ha Tinh in
central Vietnam. Then hundreds of people became sick, having eaten fish
contaminated by the wastewater from the steel plant. Local citizens complained
and called attention to the plant’s suspected role in the poisoning. When a
representative from the Taiwanese company that owned the plant acknowledged
that certain chemical compounds in the factory’s wastewater could be
responsible, the government rushed to offer counter-narratives. Government
ministers then refused to release officials findings due to the ongoing
investigation, further angering exasperated citizens. In late June, after
nearly two months of protests across multiple Vietnamese cities, the government
announced that Formosa Plastics, of which the steel plant was a subsidiary, had
agreed to pay a US $500 million fine.</p>
<p>Widening news coverage of the spill – and revelations that the government
had ignored and then covered up the story rather than acknowledge the public
health emergency – likely led the Politburo to feel compelled to make an
example of one of its most prominent critics, thereby sending a signal that it
would not tolerate open condemnation. Authorities arrested Nguyen Ngoc Nhu
Quynh, more commonly known as Mother Mushroom, in October 2016. Quynh was the
leader of the Network of Vietnamese Bloggers, an independent writers union. Her
arrest had a chilling effect on the wider community of dissident bloggers in
the country.</p>
<p>However, rather than achieving social stability by silencing its critics
with the long arm of the law, arresting dissidents often puts them in the
spotlight and grants them international prestige when news and social media
spread word of their detention and often harsh treatment.</p>
<p>In a video conference interview with Reuters, Quynh recounted her three
hunger strikes in prison, the longest lasting 16 days. She also relayed how
authorities separated her from other prisoners, so that she couldn’t
communicate with them or spread her subversive thinking.</p>
<p>The US State Department had lobbied for Quynh’s release and eventually
secured the conditions for her to fly to the United States along with her two
children and 63-year old mother. The timing of her release during Mattis’ visit
was likely meant both to reduce media attention on the story while signalling
to the US that Hanoi was willing to show flexibility to Washington’s human
rights concerns in order to keep the partnership on positive footing.</p>
<p>In recent years, the United States has lifted a ban on lethal weapons sales
to Vietnam and delivered a Hamilton-class cutter to the Vietnamese Coast Guard
in order to boost maritime capacity.</p>
<p>Nevertheless, Quynh’s release may open more questions about Vietnam’s human
rights and governance standards than it resolves. Though Hanoi released Mother
Mushroom, it has detained numerous other activists, bloggers, and lawyers.
According to Amnesty International, the Vietnamese government is currently
holding 97 political prisoners. Last Thursday, another activist who
participated in demonstrations surrounding the Formosa plant’s spill, Le Dinh
Luong, lost his appeal to overturn a 20-year sentence for “carrying out
activities that aim to overthrow the people’s administration.”</p>
<p>Under General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong, who has overseen an escalating
purge of political rivals under the guise of a Xi Jinping-esque anti-corruption
campaign, Vietnam is clinging to its intolerance for political dissent. Such a
predilection for repression hardly guarantees a tranquil populace. By focusing
on such a whack-a-mole strategy to suppress citizen dissent, the Communist
Party risks creating a wider backlash and fuelling more unrest than it can
control. Such a negative cycle threatens to undermine social harmony and
distract the leadership from effectively administering to a society on the move
and from distributing the fruits of strong economic growth in order to lay the
conditions for continued growth and global competitiveness.</p>
<p>As I have argued previously, the CPV would do well to consider delivering on
basic services and governance issues (such as reducing petty corruption,
alleviating pollution, and providing clean water) if it wants to lessen public
pressures and enhance its popular support. In the meantime, Mother Mushroom’s
new home in Houston allows her to write freely about her home country.</p>
<p>By Hunter Marston - The Interpreter - October 24, 2018</p>How Vietnam Benefits From US Strategy in the South China Seaurn:md5:78c89f32baefa6323aeebdca486d87f32018-10-21T11:29:00+02:00Vietnam aujourd'huiNews in englishdiplomacymilitaryUnited States of America<p>The Trump administration’s free and open Indo-Pacific (FOIP) strategy is
quickly gaining more definition.</p> <p>As Washington starts to counter Beijing on multiple fronts — economically,
politically and militarily — the Trump administration’s free and open
Indo-Pacific (FOIP) strategy is quickly gaining more definition. The United
States has struggled to define its FOIP, a regional construct also led by
Australia, India, and Japan, ever since Trump signed on to the concept last
November at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) CEO Summit held in Da
Nang.</p>
<p>In recent days, however, U.S. officials, including Vice President Mike
Pence, have started to comment publicly on details of the strategy. Another
U.S. official, U.S. Assistant Secretary of Defense for Asian and Pacific
Security Affairs Randall G. Schriver, recently visited Vietnam to speak on what
the U.S. FOIP means for Hanoi. Schriver was making his third visit to Vietnam
as part of the annual Defense Policy Dialogue between the United States and
Vietnam’s Ministry of National Defense, amid growing military ties between the
two former combatants.</p>
<p>In his speech at the American Center in Ho Chi Minh City on October 5,
Schriver began by referring to the Indo-Pacific region as a “priority theater,”
while highlighting some of the more aggressive actions undertaken by China in
the region, particularly in the South China Sea (which Vietnam refers to as the
East Sea). Schriver defined the new U.S. National Defense Strategy as based
upon three pillars: 1) recognition of great power competition, primarily
between China, Russia, and the United States; 2) the development and nurturing
of defense allies and partners; and 3) structural reforms of the U.S. Defense
Department to better undertake its mission.</p>
<p>How Vietnam Benefits From the New U.S. Strategy</p>
<p>One of the ways in which Vietnam can gain from the FOIP strategy is through
freedom of navigation operations (FONOPs) conducted by major players in the
region. These FONOPs are intended to show Beijing and the other littoral
nations of the South China Sea that passage by naval vessels can be free and
open — despite Beijing’s claim to some 90 percent of the waters and its
determination to control rights to passage.</p>
<p>Schriver spoke at some length concerning one such recent U.S. FONOP
involving the near collision between the USS Decatur, an Arleigh Burke-class
destroyer, and the Lanzhou, a Luyang-II class guided-missile destroyer, near
the Gaven Reef in the disputed Spratly Islands (also claimed by Vietnam).
During the FONOP, the Chinese destroyer reportedly passed within some 45 yards
(40 meters) of the U.S. destroyer, causing the U.S. warship to alter its course
in order to avoid a collision. This year, the U.S. has conducted four FONOPs in
the South China Sea so far, compared to four in 2017, three in 2016, and one in
2015.</p>
<p>According to Schriver, the U.S. FONOPs are in response to the construction
of artificial islands by Beijing — built around reefs and rocks to create
“facts on the ground” in an effort to further China’s claims. Some of those
rocks and reefs claimed by China (such as Gaven Reef) are submerged during high
tide. Schriver suggested further action may be taken by the Trump
administration against Chinese companies involved in the construction of these
artificial islands — presumably through the implementation of economic
sanctions.</p>
<p>In the airspace over the disputed waters, Schriver mentioned the FOIP policy
would also resist any existing or new declarations by Beijing of Air Defense
Identification Zones (ADIZ), one of the ways in which China attempts to assert
its sovereignty in the region. Schriver stated that under a free and open
Indo-Pacific “the United States will fly, sail, and operate wherever
international law allows,” consistent with the previous policy of former
Secretary of Defense Ash Carter under the Obama administration “pivot to Asia,”
and revealing implicit support for the territorial claims of littoral states
such as Vietnam.</p>
<p>With a Little Help From My Friends</p>
<p>While the new U.S. National Defense Strategy calls for the development and
nurturing of defense partners such as Vietnam, Hanoi will not get too friendly
thanks to its foreign policy of “Three Nos”: no foreign bases on its territory,
no military alliances, and no involving third parties in its disputes.</p>
<p>While Hanoi does not officially involve third parties in its dispute over
the South China Sea, Vietnam will stand to gain from an increase in FONOPs and
other challenges to Beijing’s assertion of authority under the U.S.
administration’s free and open Indo-Pacific strategy. Some of the naval vessels
conducting FONOPs will continue to make port of call visits at Cam Ranh Bay,
furthering the development and nurturing of defense partnerships between Hanoi,
the United States, and other major naval players in the region, while their
FONOPs will show implicit support for the claims of Vietnam and other littoral
nations.</p>
<p>Finally, with the potential for greater cooperation among the great naval
powers in the region to promote and administer a free and open Indo-Pacific
strategy, in an era of greater economic, military, and political competition
among China, Russia, and the United States, Hanoi may find it easier than ever
to skillfully play all three partners off against each other to maximum
advantage.</p>
<p>By Gary Sands - The Diplomat - October 19, 2018</p>U.S. prepares for biggest-ever Agent Orange cleanup in Vietnamurn:md5:d2a12571d2fa92b85597d6f2153eee522018-10-18T08:55:00+02:00Vietnam aujourd'huiNews in englishagent orangediplomacyUnited States of America<p>U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis on Wednesday visited a former American air
base in southern Vietnam that will soon become the biggest-ever U.S. cleanup
site for contamination left by the defoliant Agent Orange during the Vietnam
War.</p> <p>Standing near a skull-and-crossbones warning sign meant to keep people away
from toxic soil, Mattis was briefed by Vietnamese officials about the massive
contamination area.</p>
<p>In a possible sign of the sensitivity surrounding Agent Orange in Vietnam,
where millions of people are still suffering its effects, reporters were not
allowed to attend the outdoor briefing for Mattis at Bien Hoa Air Base.</p>
<p>“I came to show the support of the Defense Department for this project and
demonstrate that the United States makes good on its promises,” Mattis told his
Vietnamese counterpart at a closed-door meeting later in nearby Ho Chi Minh
City.</p>
<p>Cleanup is expected to start getting under way early next year.</p>
<p>U.S. troops dropped Agent Orange during the Vietnam War to clear thick
jungle. But it contributed to severe health problems that, according to the
U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, can include Parkinson’s Disease, prostate
cancer and Chronic B-cell Leukemia.</p>
<p>Of the 4.8 million Vietnamese who were exposed to Agent Orange, some three
million are still dealing with its effects, including children born with severe
disabilities or other health issues years after their parents were exposed,
according to the Hanoi-based Vietnam Association for Victims of Agent
Orange.</p>
<p><strong>Warming relations</strong></p>
<p>More than four decades after the Vietnam War ended in 1975, ties between the
United States and Vietnam are less seen through the prism of the conflict and
more through shared concerns over China.</p>
<p>Vietnam has emerged as the most vocal opponent of China’s territorial claims
in the South China Sea and has been buying U.S. military hardware, including an
armed, Hamilton-class Coast Guard cutter.</p>
<p>The United States, in turn, accuses China of militarizing the strategic
waterway, through which more than $3 trillion in cargo passes every year, and
sees Vietnam as a crucial ally in drawing regional opposition to Beijing’s
behavior.</p>
<p>But U.S. officials including Mattis - who is on his second trip to Vietnam
just this year - hope that addressing America’s wartime legacies like Agent
Orange can become a vehicle for further strengthening ties.</p>
<p>When a U.S. aircraft carrier visited Vietnam in March, for example, one of
the places U.S. sailors visited was a Vietnamese shelter for people suffering
from the effects of Agent Orange.</p>
<p>The United States just completed a five-year, $110 million program that
cleaned soil contaminated by Agent Orange at Danang International Airport,
which was one of the main air bases used for storing and spraying the herbicide
between 1961 and 1971.</p>
<p>But officials from the U.S. Agency for International Development, which is
overseeing the project, said the Bien Hoa site will be four times larger than
Danang, a massive undertaking that is expected to cost $390 million, according
to a fact sheet distributed to reporters.</p>
<p>According to the U.S. Congressional Research Service (CRS), one soil sample
from Bien Hoa had a “toxic equivalency,” or TEQ, of more than 1,000 times over
the international limit.</p>
<p>A 2011 study conducted by a private consulting firm determined that
contaminated soil had spread from hot spots at the base into nearby lakes,
ponds, creeks, and drainage ditches, increasing the amount of soil and sediment
that will require treatment.</p>
<p>“The impacts on the community is very difficult to measure. Dioxin has
impacts (on health) at very low concentrations and they’re not real
consistent,” one of the U.S. AID officials said, speaking on condition of
anonymity.</p>
<p>By Phil Stewart - Reuters - October 17, 2018</p>Vietnam frees political activist known as 'Mother Mushroom' but forces her into exile in U.S.urn:md5:f5d0303dc99f3dfb5b333c72a1f143ba2018-10-18T08:51:00+02:00Vietnam aujourd'huiNews in englishhuman rightsUnited States of America<p>Vietnam has freed a well-known blogger after two years in prison on the
condition that she leave for the United States.</p> <p>Nguyen Ngoc Nhu Quynh, known as “Mother Mushroom,” was arrested in October
2016 and sentenced to 10 years in prison on charges of defaming the Communist
government. The conviction of the popular blogger, who wrote about human rights
and industrial pollution, drew criticism from some Western governments and
international human rights groups.</p>
<p>Friends of the 39-year-old blogger said she was on her way to the U.S. with
her mother and two young children.</p>
<p>“After numerous efforts, the family of Nguyen Ngoc Nhu Quynh was reunited in
a free country,” her friend Nguyen Tin wrote on his Facebook page.
“Congratulations to her small family.”</p>
<p>Quynh’s lawyer, Ha Huy Son, said her release was good news but did not lift
the obstacles faced by people who fight for democracy in Vietnam.</p>
<p>Nicholas Bequelin, Amnesty International’s Regional Director for East and
South East Asia, said in a statement, “While Mother Mushroom is no longer
imprisoned, the condition for her release was exile and there are over one
hundred people languishing in jail because they peacefully spoke their mind —
in public, on blogs or on Facebook.”</p>
<p>In June, Vietnam’s Communist authorities released prominent human rights
lawyer Nguyen Van Dai and exiled him and another dissident to Germany.</p>
<p>Quynh’s release came as U.S. Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis visited
Vietnam.</p>
<p>The Associated Press - Time - October 18, 2018</p>US defence secretary visits Vietnamurn:md5:9c71585e87ebcccf3e878c084a227f462018-10-16T08:36:00+02:00Vietnam aujourd'huiNews in englishdiplomacymilitaryUnited States of America<p>US Defence Secretary James Mattis is due to land in Vietnam amid rising
tensions with China over trade and the South China Sea.</p> <p>US Defence Secretary James Mattis will arrive in Ho Chi Minh City on his
second trip to Vietnam this year amid rising tensions with China over
trade.</p>
<p>Mattis, a retired Marine general and former commander of US troops in Iraq
and Afghanistan, will land in Ho Chi Minh City on Tuesday afternoon and Ho Chi
Minh City Communist Party boss and de-facto mayor Nguyen Thien Nhan will greet
him upon landing.</p>
<p>Mattis is also scheduled to visit Bien Hoa airbase on Wednesday during his
two-day trip and meet Defence Minister Ngo Xuan Lich.</p>
<p>The base, located north of Ho Chi Minh City, is the site of a US-sponsored
clean-up of Agent Orange, an herbicide used by the US during the war that has
since been blamed for hundreds of thousands of birth defects.</p>
<p>Mattis last visited Vietnam in January, when he held talks with Lich in
Hanoi. The trip was followed by the visit of the USS Carl Vinson aircraft
carrier in March to Da Nang.</p>
<p>Carl Thayer, an emeritus professor at the University of New South Wales and
an expert on south-east Asia, said Mattis was likely to discuss Agent Orange
clean-up, support for Vietnamese peacekeepers in South Sudan and Vietnam's
purchase of Russian weapons, which may run afoul of US sanctions against
Moscow.</p>
<p>&quot;Vietnam will come under increased pressure to step up defence cooperation
with the United States including more frequent naval port visits,&quot; Thayer
added.</p>
<p>The US and Vietnam have enjoyed increasingly close relations in recent years
as both countries share concerns about Chinese maritime claims in the South
China Sea.</p>
<p>China claims almost the entire South China Sea, including waters
internationally recognized as Vietnam's exclusive economic zone.</p>
<p>Mattis was to also visit Beijing during his current Asia trip, but the trip
was cancelled as the two countries' trade dispute brews.</p>
<p>US President Donald Trump last month slapped additional tariffs on Chinese
goods, after imposing duties on $US50 billion worth of imports earlier this
year. China has retaliated with its own duties on US imports including
soybeans, cars and aircraft.</p>
<p>The trip comes amid rumors from the White House that Mattis may resign.</p>
<p>Trump said Mattis was &quot;a good guy&quot; but &quot;sort of a Democrat, if you want to
know the truth,&quot; in excerpts released ahead of an interview released Sunday on
the CBS programme 60 Minutes.</p>
<p>While travelling to Vietnam, Mattis denied to reporters that an exit was
imminent or that he had a rift with Trump, saying he was &quot;on his <a href="http://blog.vietnam-aujourdhui.info/post/2018/10/16/the%20president's" title="the president's">the president's</a> team&quot;.</p>
<p>By Bac Pham &amp; Bennett Murray - Deutsche Presse Agentur - October 16,
20182</p>Mattis pushes closer ties to Vietnam amid tension with Chinaurn:md5:8a0a6b54920dd708a4c4b8433fa945d12018-10-15T08:42:00+02:00Vietnam aujourd'huiNews in englishdiplomacymilitaryUnited States of America<p>By making a rare second trip this year to Vietnam, Defense Secretary Jim
Mattis is signaling how intensively the Trump administration is trying to
counter China's military assertiveness by cozying up to smaller nations in the
region that share American wariness about Chinese intentions.</p> <p>The visit beginning Tuesday also shows how far U.S.-Vietnamese relations
have advanced since the tumultuous years of the Vietnam War.</p>
<p>Mattis, a retired general who entered the Marine Corps during Vietnam but
did not serve there, visited Hanoi in January. By coincidence, that stop came
just days before the 50th anniversary of the Tet Offensive in 1968. Tet was a
turning point when North Vietnamese fighters attacked an array of key
objectives in the South, surprising Washington and feeding anti-war sentiment
even though the North's offensive turned out to be a tactical military
failure.</p>
<p>Three months after the Mattis visit, an U.S. Navy aircraft carrier, the USS
Carl Vinson, made a port call at Da Nang. It was the first such visit since the
war and a reminder to China that the U.S. is intent on strengthening
partnerships in the region as a counterweight to China's growing military
might.</p>
<p>The most vivid expression of Chinese assertiveness is its transformation of
contested islets and other features in the South China Sea into strategic
military outposts. The Trump administration has sharply criticized China for
deploying surface-to-air missiles and other weapons on some of these outposts.
In June, Mattis said the placement of these weapons is &quot;tied directly to
military use for the purposes of intimidation and coercion.&quot;</p>
<p>This time Mattis is visiting Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam's most populous city
and its economic center. Known as Saigon during the period before the
communists took over the Republic of South Vietnam in 1975, the city was
renamed for the man who led the Vietnamese nationalist movement.</p>
<p>Mattis also plans to visit a Vietnamese air base, Bien Hoa, a major air
station for American forces during the war, and meet with the defense minister,
Ngo Xuan Lich.</p>
<p>The visit comes amid a leadership transition after the death in September of
Vietnam's president, Tran Dai Quang. Earlier this month, Vietnam's ruling
Communist Party nominated its general secretary, Nguyen Phu Trong, for the
additional post of president. He is expected to be approved by the National
Assembly.</p>
<p>Although Vietnam has become a common destination for American secretaries of
defense, two visits in one year is unusual, and Ho Chi Minh City is rarely on
the itinerary. The last Pentagon chief to visit Ho Chi Minh City was William
Cohen in the year 2000; he was the first U.S. defense secretary to visit
Vietnam since the war. Formal diplomatic relations were restored in 1995 and
the U.S. lifted its war-era arms embargo in 2016.</p>
<p>The Mattis trip originally was to include a visit to Beijing, but that stop
was canceled amid rising tensions over trade and defense issues. China recently
rejected a request for a Hong Kong port visit by an American warship, and last
summer Mattis disinvited China from a major maritime exercise in the Pacific.
China in September scrapped a Pentagon visit by its navy chief and demanded
that Washington cancel an arms sale to Taiwan.</p>
<p>These tensions have served to accentuate the potential for a stronger U.S.
partnership with Vietnam.</p>
<p>Josh Kurlantzick, a senior fellow and Asia specialist at the Council on
Foreign Relations, said in an interview that Vietnam in recent years has
shifted from a foreign and defense policy that carefully balanced relations
with China and the United States to one that shades in the direction of
Washington.</p>
<p>&quot;I do see Vietnam very much aligned with some of Trump's policies,&quot; he said,
referring to what the administration calls its &quot;free and open Indo-Pacific
strategy.&quot; It emphasizes ensuring all countries in the region are free from
coercion and keeping sea lanes, especially the contested South China Sea, open
for international trade.</p>
<p>&quot;Vietnam, leaving aside Singapore, is the country the most skeptical of
China's Southeast Asia policy and makes the most natural partner for the U.S.,&quot;
Kurlantzick said.</p>
<p>Vietnam's proximity to the South China Sea makes it an important player in
disputes with China over territorial claims to islets, shoals and other small
land formations in the sea. Vietnam also fought a border war with China in
1979.</p>
<p>Traditionally wary of its huge northern neighbor, Vietnam shares China's
system of single-party rule. Vietnam has increasingly cracked down on
dissidents and corruption, with scores of high-ranking officials and executives
jailed since 2016 on Trong's watch.</p>
<p>Sweeping economic changes over the past 30 years have opened Vietnam to
foreign investment and trade, and made it one of fastest growing economies in
Southeast Asia. But the Communist Party tolerates no challenge to its one-party
rule. Even so, the Trump administration has made a focused effort to draw
closer to Vietnam.</p>
<p>When he left Hanoi in January, Mattis said his visit made clear that
Americans and Vietnamese have shared interests that in some cases predate the
dark period of the Vietnam War.</p>
<p>&quot;Neither of us liked being colonized,&quot; he said.</p>
<p>The Associated Press - October 15, 2018</p>How Donald Trump’s withdrawal from landmark trade deal became a setback for democracy in Vietnamurn:md5:8f137deadd8f4faad0d674ba220c8fc52018-10-12T08:43:00+02:00Vietnam aujourd'huiNews in englisheconomyhuman rightsUnited States of America<p>Obama had billed the Trans-Pacific Partnership as a chance for the US to
write the rules of trade in the world’s fastest-growing region – while also
curtailing China’s influence</p> <p>It was one of US President Donald Trump’s very first acts: to pull out of
the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a sweeping 12-nation trade agreement that had
been the centrepiece of President Barack Obama’s strategic “rebalance” toward
Asia. Trump had charged that such deals hurt American manufacturing, and on
January 23, 2017, he signed the withdrawal order in the Oval Office.</p>
<p>“A great thing for the American worker, what we just did,” Trump said.</p>
<p>With that, he set in motion a political and economic storm that is still
reverberating in Vietnam. Freed from conditions imposed by the Obama
administration to join the trade pact, Vietnam’s Communist government has
scrapped plans to allow independent trade unions and unleashed its most severe
clampdown on dissent in decades. Authorities have arrested scores of social
activists, bloggers and democracy advocates, sentencing many to jail terms of
10 to 20 years.</p>
<p>Vietnam offers an example of the little-noticed fallout from some of Trump’s
earliest decisions. The Trans-Pacific treaty, known as the TPP, quickly faded
from American headlines as Trump launched high-stakes trade battles with China,
Europe, Mexico and Canada. But the abrupt policy change has had far-reaching
ripple effects, according to diplomats and activists.</p>
<p>“As soon as America withdrew from the TPP, you saw a radical change in the
way <a href="http://blog.vietnam-aujourdhui.info/post/2018/10/12/the%20Vietnamese" title="the Vietnamese">the Vietnamese</a>
government treated workers, labour activists and unions,” said labour activist
Do Thi Minh Hanh, 33, speaking in a cafe in Ho Chi Minh City. “A lot of people
have been harassed, followed, imprisoned and threatened.”</p>
<p>Trump’s policy change wasn’t the only factor in the Vietnamese crackdown –
hardliners had become dominant in the Communist Party and were concerned about
a rise in social activism and protests. Nor is he solely responsible for the
fate of the TPP.</p>
<p>Obama had failed to persuade a sceptical Congress and public of the deal’s
merits before leaving office, with the result that his signature Asian foreign
policy initiative was widely maligned. Indeed, such was the prevailing mood
that candidate Hillary Clinton signalled her intent to pull out of an agreement
she had once lauded as the “gold standard” of trade deals.</p>
<p>Asked about the TPP decision and crackdown in Vietnam, a spokesman for the
National Security Council, Garrett Marquis, said trade treaties weren’t
necessarily effective in achieving democratic reform. He pointed to China’s
accession to the World Trade Organisation in 2001, saying it “proved beyond all
doubt that increasing international trade doesn’t always liberalise
authoritarian single-party states. In fact, it may delay liberalisation by
making the ruling party stronger.”</p>
<p>The pros and cons of the trade pact are debatable. But some things are more
certain. The United States’ decision to construct and then exit from the TPP
struck an enormous blow to its credibility in Asia, one that China was not shy
about exploiting. The decision also exacted a real human cost in Vietnam,
activists say.</p>
<p>As the TPP was being negotiated, a budding movement of Vietnamese activists
used social media to spread ideas about workers’ rights, transparency,
accountability and even democracy. The US government had engineered the trade
agreement to also secure promises from Vietnam’s leadership that it would
permit independent trade unions, strengthen environmental controls and allow a
free and open internet. When the TPP was scrapped, that dynamic was thrown into
reverse.</p>
<p>Minh Hanh has seen fellow labour activists arrested and given long jail
sentences. She has faced constant harassment, including being attacked by
masked men hurling rocks and explosives when she was staying at her father’s
house.</p>
<p>Another activist, environmentalist Le Dinh Luong, was charged with
subversion and sentenced to 20 years in jail. He has not been allowed contact
with his wife, who fears his fragile health means he will die in prison.</p>
<p>“The TPP could have been some wind in the sails of Vietnamese activists,
trade unionists and environmentalists,” said Brad Adams, executive director of
the Asia division at Human Rights Watch. “Pulling out of the TPP has been a big
setback.”</p>
<p>Obama had billed the TPP as a chance for the United States to write the
rules of trade in the world’s fastest-growing region and to raise labour and
environmental standards so US companies would not be undercut. The deal was
also a thinly disguised attempt to contain China’s rise by forming a regional,
rules-based order that excluded Beijing.</p>
<p>Liberalisers in Vietnam’s Communist Party saw the TPP as the incentive the
government needed to bring about change, with its offer of greater access to
one of Vietnam’s biggest export markets: the United States.</p>
<p>“The TPP is the driving force for Reforms 2.0. The business environment,
anti-corruption, labour reforms,” said Tran Viet Thai, deputy general director
of the Institute for Foreign Strategic Studies at the Diplomatic Academy of
Vietnam, a foreign ministry think tank.</p>
<p>Vietnam pledged to not only allow independent trade unions but also outlaw
child labour and give a greater chance to private firms to compete against the
Communist-run state sector. Citizens were promised a “free and open
internet”.</p>
<p>In February 2016, the United States and 11 other countries signed the
treaty. It still needed to be ratified domestically in those nations. But for
the first time since the Vietnam war, the United States had real leverage to
force the Communist Party to give greater political freedom to the people.</p>
<p>Then, the Trump administration withdrew.</p>
<p>“It pulled the rug out from under the reformers,” said Ted Osius, then US
ambassador to Vietnam.</p>
<p>During TPP negotiations, Osius had constantly emphasised the need to get the
trade pact ratified by Congress, and he would bring letters from members of
Congress to the Vietnamese government underscoring the attention they paid to
human rights. Donald Trump’s strategy was never about alienating the world – it
was always about containing China</p>
<p>“It was a very, very powerful message,” said Osius, a career diplomat
appointed ambassador by Obama. “It didn’t mean they threw open all the prison
doors, but they did consider American views when they made decisions. I don’t
think that’s the case since we pulled out of TPP.”</p>
<p>But in Vietnam, other forces were at work. Protests had erupted in the
spring of 2016 after a toxic spill caused the country’s worst environmental
disaster, with marine life washing up dead along a huge swathe of shoreline.
The spill came from a plant operated by a Taiwanese company, but the anger was
directed at the Vietnamese government for its slow response, lack of
transparency and corruption. It was the largest outpouring of anger in four
decades of Communist Party rule.</p>
<p>Within Vietnam’s ruling Politburo, hardline conservatives had gained the
upper hand during a leadership transition in January 2016, while Obama was
still in the White House. They were not about to tolerate an uprising.</p>
<p>The first hint of a crackdown came even before Trump won the presidential
race, with the October 2016 detention of the blogger known as Mother Mushroom.
But it wasn’t until the summer of 2017 that the arrests of activists started
coming thick and fast.</p>
<p>Mother Mushroom, whose real name is Nguyen Ngoc Nhu Quynh, had been arrested
in the past, but this time was different, with a 10-year sentence handed down
in June 2017 for “conducting propaganda against the socialist state”. She was
one of at least 29 Vietnamese activists arrested in 2017 for their writings and
advocacy on behalf of human rights, the environment and democracy, according to
Amnesty International.</p>
<p>One month later, on the evening of July 24, 2017, environmental activist
Luong was on his way home when a dozen plain clothes security officers stopped
him, beat him and took him away, his wife said. Luong is a successful business
executive turned community organiser and blogger.</p>
<p>“He wants to help others, the weak and the poor, to combat injustice,” his
wife, Nguyen Thi Quy, 53, said in an interview here. The couple’s son and
daughter-in-law were beaten when they asked police about his whereabouts, she
said.</p>
<p>Luong, 52, who suffers from gout, was sentenced to 20 years in prison for
“carrying out activities aimed at overthrowing the people’s
administration”.</p>
<p>Nguyen Van Dai, a lawyer, founded the Brotherhood for Democracy in 2013 with
several activists, and toured the country teaching others how to defend their
rights.</p>
<p>On April 5, after a trial with five other leaders of the group, Dai was
sentenced to 15 years in prison. Dai and one of his colleagues have since been
sent into exile in Germany – partly on health grounds and partly thanks to
international pressure, he said.</p>
<p>If the US government had stayed in the TPP, “Vietnam would have had to make
many commitments about improving human rights, about improving the situation
for workers,” Dai said in an interview at his modest, two-room home outside
Frankfurt. “It would have been a chance to change my country.”</p>
<p>Vietnam still intends to join a version of the TPP that will move forward
without the United States. But that deal excludes many of the tough steps that
Vietnam had committed to, including on workers’ rights.</p>
<p>Suspicion of China runs high in Vietnam, not least because the two countries
fiercely contest islands in the South China Sea. Whoever is in the White House,
Hanoi’s leaders will continue to look to the United States to balance Beijing’s
influence.</p>
<p>In late July, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo visited Southeast Asia touting
the administration’s alternative to the TPP, an “Indo-Pacific Economic Vision,”
promising greater economic engagement based on the principles of “freedom and
openness,” and led by American companies.</p>
<p>Meanwhile in Vietnam, US Embassy spokesman Pope Thrower said the US
government has maintained its “long-standing commitment to work with official
and non-government partners to advance labour rights in Vietnam”. But Minh
Hanh, the labour activist, sees things a bit differently.</p>
<p>She is grateful for the US support that helped free her halfway through a
seven-year jail sentence in 2014 but now feels more alone.</p>
<p>“The fact that the United States pays less attention to trade unions makes
my task as an activist a little harder,” she said. “But we activists will never
pull back, never give up fighting, with or without American support.”</p>
<p>The Washington Post - October 12 , 2018</p>U.S. general considered nuclear response in Vietnam War, cables showurn:md5:09e49120d556c0f0f722315bf2ccffc92018-10-07T12:06:00+02:00Vietnam aujourd'huiNews in englishhistorymilitarynuclearUnited States of Americawar<p>In one of the darkest moments of the Vietnam War, the top American military
commander in Saigon activated a plan in 1968 to move nuclear weapons to South
Vietnam until he was overruled by President Lyndon B. Johnson, according to
recently declassified documents cited in a new history of wartime presidential
decisions.</p> <p>The documents reveal a long-secret set of preparations by the commander,
Gen. William C. Westmoreland, to have nuclear weapons at hand should American
forces find themselves on the brink of defeat at Khe Sanh, one of the fiercest
battles of the war.</p>
<p>With the approval of the American commander in the Pacific, General
Westmoreland had put together a secret operation, code-named Fracture Jaw, that
included moving nuclear weapons into South Vietnam so that they could be used
on short notice against North Vietnamese troops.</p>
<p>Johnson’s national security adviser, Walt W. Rostow, alerted the president
in a memorandum on White House stationery.</p>
<p>The president rejected the plan, and ordered a turnaround, according to Tom
Johnson, then a young special assistant to the president and note-taker at the
meetings on the issue, which were held in the family dining room on the second
floor of the White House.</p>
<p>“When he learned that the planning had been set in motion, he was
extraordinarily upset and forcefully sent word through Rostow, and I think
directly to Westmoreland, to shut it down,” Mr. Johnson said in an
interview.</p>
<p>He said the president’s fear was “a wider war” in which the Chinese would
enter the fray, as they had in Korea in 1950.</p>
<p>“Johnson never fully trusted his generals,” said Mr. Johnson, who is of no
relation to the president. “He had great admiration for General Westmoreland,
but he didn’t want his generals to run the war.”</p>
<p>Had the weapons been used, it would have added to the horrors of one of the
most tumultuous and violent years in modern American history. Johnson announced
weeks later that he would not run for re-election. The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther
King Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy were assassinated shortly thereafter.</p>
<p>The story of how close the United States came to reaching for nuclear
weapons in Vietnam, 23 years after the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and
Nagasaki forced Japan to surrender, is contained in “Presidents of War,” a
coming book by Michael Beschloss, the presidential historian.</p>
<p>“Johnson certainly made serious mistakes in waging the Vietnam War,” said
Mr. Beschloss, who found the documents during his research for the book. “But
we have to thank him for making sure that there was no chance in early 1968 of
that tragic conflict going nuclear.”</p>
<p>The new documents — some of which were quietly declassified two years ago —
suggest it was moving in that direction.</p>
<p>With the Khe Sanh battle on the horizon, Johnson pressed his commanders to
make sure the United States did not suffer an embarrassing defeat — one that
would have proved to be a political disaster and a personal humiliation.</p>
<p>The North Vietnamese forces were using everything they had against two
regiments of United States Marines and a comparatively small number of South
Vietnamese troops.</p>
<p>While publicly expressing confidence in the outcome of the battle at Khe
Sanh, General Westmoreland was also privately organizing a group to meet in
Okinawa to plan how to move nuclear weapons into the South — and how they might
be used against the North Vietnamese forces. Editors’ Picks The Towers Came
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<p>“Oplan Fracture Jaw has been approved by me,” General Westmoreland wrote to
Adm. Ulysses S. Grant Sharp Jr., the American commander in the Pacific, on Feb.
10, 1968. (The admiral was named for the Civil War general and president, who
was married to an ancestor.)</p>
<p>The plan did not last long.</p>
<p>That day, Mr. Rostow sent an “eyes only” memorandum to the president, his
second in a week warning of the impending plan.</p>
<p>Two days later, Admiral Sharp sent an order to “discontinue all planning for
Fracture Jaw” and to place all the planning material, “including messages and
correspondence relating thereto, under positive security.”</p>
<p>The incident has echoes for modern times. It was only 14 months ago that
President Trump was threatening the use of nuclear weapons against North Korea
— which, unlike North Vietnam at the time, possesses its own small nuclear
arsenal.</p>
<p>There have been other moments when presidents had to consider, or bluff
about, using atomic weapons. The most famous was the Cuban missile crisis in
1962, the closest that the United States and the Soviet Union came to nuclear
conflict.</p>
<p>And before he was dismissed in 1951 by President Harry S. Truman, Gen.
Douglas MacArthur explored with his superiors the use of nuclear weapons in the
Korean War. Truman had feared that MacArthur’s aggressive strategy would set
off a larger war with China, but at one point did move atomic warheads to bases
in the Pacific, though not to Korea itself.</p>
<p>But the case of Khe Sanh was different, the documents show.</p>
<p>“In Korea, MacArthur did not make a direct appeal to move nuclear weapons
into the theater almost immediately,” when it appeared that South Korea might
fall to the North’s invasion in 1950, Mr. Beschloss said. “But in Vietnam,
Westmoreland was pressuring the president to do exactly that.”</p>
<p>The seriousness of that discussion was revealed in a lengthy cable about the
Khe Sanh battle that General Westmoreland sent to the chairman of the Joint
Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Earle Wheeler, on Feb. 3, 1968.</p>
<p>“Should the situation in the DMZ area change dramatically, we should be
prepared to introduce weapons of greater effectiveness against massed forces,”
General Westmoreland wrote in a cable that was declassified in 2014 but did not
come to light until Mr. Beschloss cited it in his forthcoming book.</p>
<p>“Under such circumstances, I visualize that either tactical nuclear weapons
or chemical agents would be active candidates for employment.”</p>
<p>Within four days, Admiral Sharp, the Pacific commander, wrote that he had
“been briefed on the contingency plan for the employement of tactical nuclear
weapons in the Khe Sanh/DMZ area which was drafted by members of our respective
staffs last week in Okinawa.’’</p>
<p>He declared it “conceptually sound” with some minor alterations, and asked
for a full plan to be forwarded to him “on an expedited basis so that the
necessary supporting plans can be drawn up.”</p>
<p>Three days later, General Westmoreland wrote back that he had approved the
plan. At the White House, Mr. Rostow noted to the president: “There are no
nuclear weapons in South Vietnam. Presidential authority would be required to
put them there.”</p>
<p>That notification led to the president’s angry eruption, and within days
Admiral Sharp, once so eager to develop the plans, ordered a shutdown.</p>
<p>“Discontinue all planning for Fracture Jaw,” he commanded in a Feb. 12,
1968, cable to General Westmoreland, with copies to the Joint Chiefs. “Debrief
all personnel with access to this planning project that there can be no
disclosure of the content of the plan or knowledge that such planning was
either underway or suspended.”</p>
<p>None of this was known to the American Marines and other soldiers who were
being shelled at Khe Sanh.</p>
<p>“I don’t remember any discussion of atomic weapons on the ground at Khe
Sanh,” Lewis M. Simons, then an Associated Press reporter on the ground with
the troops, and later a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter who worked at The
Washington Post and Knight Ridder newspapers.</p>
<p>Mr. Beschloss’s book, which will be published on Tuesday by Crown, examines
challenges facing presidents from Thomas Jefferson to George W. Bush. It also
reveals that at the same time the nuclear debate was underway, senators were
outraged to discover that the president and his aides had misled them about
progress in the Vietnam War.</p>
<p>The chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, J. William
Fulbright, Democrat of Arkansas, told his fellow senators that “we were just
plain lied to,” and that the lying meant that the United States had lost “a
form of democracy,” according to transcripts obtained by Mr. Beschloss, who is
a frequent contributor to The New York Times.</p>
<p>There was even discussion of the possibility of impeaching the president for
those lies. That discussion was terminated by Johnson’s decision, announced
later that spring, not to seek re-election.</p>
<p>By David E. Sanger - The New York Times - October 6, 2018</p>Vietnam concerned about possibility of nuclear power plans in troubled watersurn:md5:b4dd9ba97c30cf6e99c53a70a13eaf212018-08-24T10:00:00+02:00Vietnam aujourd'huiNews in englishChinadiplomacyUnited States of America<p>Every country is obligated to maintain peace and stability in the East Sea,
Vietnam has asserted.</p> <p>Responding to U.S. warnings that China might bring floating nuclear power
plants to the area, Nguyen Phuong Tra, deputy spokesperson of Vietnam's Foreign
Ministry, said peace and stability in the waters are the common interest of
every country in the world.</p>
<p>&quot;Therefore all parties are obliged to contribute to this goal,&quot; Tra said at
a press conference Thursday.</p>
<p>In the annual report submitted to the Congress, the U.S. Department of
Defense warned that China might have plans to power islands and reefs in the
South China Sea, which Vietnam calls the East Sea, with floating nuclear power
stations.</p>
<p>Development of such projects could begin prior to 2020, the report said.</p>
<p>The spokesperson of Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte also said that the
Philippine government was worried about the possibility that foreign powers may
bring nuclear warheads into the region, which has been declared a nuclear-free
zone, according to The Philippine Star.</p>
<p>At the Thursday press conference, Vietnam's Foreign Ministry also slammed
Taiwan's ongoing live-fire drills around Ba Binh (Itu Aba) Island in Vietnam's
Truong Sa (Spratly) Islands.</p>
<p>&quot;Taiwan's continued holding of live-fire drills around Ba Binh Island
seriously violates Vietnam's sovereignty, threatens security, maritime and
aviation safety, causes tension and complicates the situation in the region,&quot;
Tra said.</p>
<p>The deputy spokesperson stressed that Vietnam has full legal basis and
historical evidence to assert its sovereignty over the island. Vietnam
therefore resolutely opposes the drill and demands Taiwan not to repeat any
such exercises in the future.</p>
<p>Taiwan's Ocean Affairs Council last month announced that it would hold a
live-fire drill around the island from August 22-24.</p>
<p>Ba Binh is the largest naturally occurring island in Vietnam's Truong Sa
archipelago, but it is currently under Taiwanese occupation. The 0.5-square
kilometer island is 1,600 kilometers southwest of Taiwan.</p>
<p>By Khanh Lynh &amp; Hong Hanh - .VnExpress.Net - August 24, 2018</p>Vietnam jails two Americans for 14 years for trying to 'overthrow state'urn:md5:7b78666e199f8ba8b647505fc24d79c12018-08-24T08:54:00+02:00Vietnam aujourd'huiNews in englishjusticeUnited States of America<p>James Nguyen and Angle Phan convicted of plotting to hijack radio stations
and arrange protests against state</p> <p>A court in Vietnam has sentenced two Americans to 14 years in jail for to
“attempting to overthrow the state”, state media reported.</p>
<p>James Nguyen and Angle Phan were accused of plotting to hijack radio
stations to broadcast anti-state messaging and of arranging anti-state
protests, as members of the California-based Provisional National Government of
Vietnam.</p>
<p>The pair had apparently been brought over from the US to “develop their
force and direct other members in the country to conduct anti-state
activities.”</p>
<p>The previously unknown group had been declared a terrorist organisation by
the Vietnamese government in January after 15 of its members were charged with
an alleged failed plot to blow up the airport in Ho Chi Minh City.</p>
<p>In this week’s trial, which lasted two days, 10 members of the group were
convicted, including Nguyen and Angle – who are Americans of Vietnamese
descent. They will be deported from Vietnam after the completion of their 14
year-jail terms.</p>
<p>According to the state news agency, the judge said the defendant’s acts were
“particularly serious, violating national security, sabotaging the country’s
stability and development, causing instability in political and social order
and going against the interests of the state.”</p>
<p>In a statement, the US embassy said: “We will continue to monitor Mr
Nguyen’s welfare, advocate for him and provide consular services until his
release.” A spokesperson for the embassy said it was not authorised to speak on
behalf of Phan.</p>
<p>Vietnam regularly jails bloggers, activists and anyone seen to be promoting
anti-government messaging, but the crackdown has increased in recent months. In
response to a rare street protest last month, when hundreds took to the streets
to voice anger at growing Chinese influence in the country, the government
jailed dozens who took part.</p>
<p>The Provisional Central Government of Vietnam organisation was formed in the
1990s by former soldiers who fought on the side of the US-sponsored south
Vietnam, the side which lost in the Vietnam war.</p>
<p>The group is dedicated to bringing about “free and fair elections in
Vietnam” and “to unify all the hope and desire of the freedom-loving Vietnamese
to become a National Resolution to discharge the dictatorship of communist in
Vietnam,” according to their website.</p>
<p>Par Hannah Ellis-Petersen - The Guardian with Reuters - August 24, 2018</p>Vietnam’s aviation sector eyes flights to USurn:md5:a9d5ebdaa85caff623db831707fb371b2018-08-21T08:33:00+02:00Vietnam aujourd'huiNews in englishair carriersUnited States of America<p>Vietnam’s aviation sector is set to undergo the international aviation
safety assessment program of the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) this
week to be eligible to launch direct flights to the country.</p> <p>According to the Civil Aviation Authority of Vietnam (CAAV), a team
comprising FAA and Boeing representatives on August 13 will assess Vietnam’s
aviation safety management system.</p>
<p>In the 2013 technical evaluation, the FAA presented 47 recommendations to
Vietnam. There were only 16 recommendations in two most recent evaluations. The
CAAV noted that Vietnam has overcome the problems highlighted by the FAA.</p>
<p>In the past two technical evaluations, in preparation for the official
review, the FAA praised Vietnam’s introduction of legal documents and guidance
as well as improvements to aviation safety management facilities and equipment.
Safety supervision activities have been standardized to meet the requirements
of the International Civil Aviation Organization and other international
standards. Moreover, the problem of pilot shortages in 2013 has been
resolved.</p>
<p>Under U.S. regulations, for a foreign airline to fly to the United States,
the aviation authority of that country must satisfy the supervision
requirements of the ICAO and the safety rules of the FAA.</p>
<p>As such, Vietnam needs to get approval for its aviation safety management in
Category 1 (CAT 1). Following this, the CAAV will be allowed to oversee
airlines based in Vietnam to ensure their compliance with international
regulations and standards, managing their eligibility for operating flights to
the United States.</p>
<p>With the resolution of the indicated shortcomings, the CAAV believes Vietnam
will pass the coming official technical review of the FAA, allowing Vietnamese
airlines to launch direct air services to the United States by late next year
at the latest.</p>
<p>The national flag carrier planned a direct air route to the United States in
July 2008, but the plan was scrapped as the necessary conditions were not in
place. Vietnam Airlines was still unable to fly to the United States in 2011 as
it needed to wait for the U.S. aviation authority to evaluate the aviation
safety management capabilities of Vietnam.</p>
<p>The air transport agreement between Vietnam and the United States was
amended in late 2012 to enhance cooperation in civil aviation between the two
countries, including Vietnam Airlines’ consideration of a direct air route to
the United States.</p>
<p>Saigon Times - August 21, 2018</p>US citizens in Vietnam insurrection trialurn:md5:ec3902f7872d00ed6e3abb9a90c411dc2018-08-21T08:28:00+02:00Vietnam aujourd'huiNews in englishhuman rightsjusticeUnited States of America<p>A court in Ho Chi Minh City has opened a trial against 12 activists,
including two US citizens, on charges of attempting to overthrow the
government, state media reports.</p> <p>The 12 people belong to the California-based Provisional Government of
Vietnam dissident group led by US citizen Dao Minh Quan.</p>
<p>They were charged with attempting to overthrow Vietnam's single party
communist state by attempting to cultivate sources, spread propaganda and send
people from abroad to implement &quot;terrorist&quot; activities, the Dan Tri news site
reported on Tuesday.</p>
<p>If convicted, they face the death penalty.</p>
<p>The indictment charges that the group ultimately aims to violently overthrow
the Vietnamese government.</p>
<p>Among the two on trial are two Vietnamese-born US citizens, Angel Phan, 62,
and James Han Nguyen, 51.</p>
<p>Vietnam listed the group, which is still loyal to the former South
Vietnamese regime defeated at the end of the Vietnam War, as a terrorist group
in January.</p>
<p>The court is scheduled to hand down a verdict on Thursday.</p>
<p>Deutsche Presse Agentur - August 21, 2018</p>US criticizes Vietnam for jailing peaceful activistsurn:md5:e1ba7d7d80c19bf0ca9aa29526a905862018-08-18T21:35:00+02:00Vietnam aujourd'huiNews in englishhuman rightsUnited States of America<p>The United States said it was deeply concerned over Vietnam's conviction and
sentencing of an activist this week, calling the trend of increased arrests and
harsh sentences of government critics &quot;troubling.&quot;</p> <p>A State Department statement Friday also called on the communist government
to release all political prisoners and allow all individuals to express their
views freely and assemble peacefully without fear of retribution.</p>
<p>Le Dinh Luong was sentenced to 20 years in prison and five years' probation
on Thursday after being convicted of attempting to overthrow the
government.</p>
<pre>
The State Department called the charge &quot;vague&quot; and urged the government to ensure its actions and laws, including the Penal Code, are consistent with the human rights provisions of Vietnam's Constitution and its international obligations and commitments.
</pre>
<p>Luong's lawyer, Ha Huy Son, said the main charge against his client
concerned encouraging others to join the pro-democracy Viet Tan group in exile
in the United States, which Hanoi considers a terrorist organization. Luong
also participated and reportedly called on others to join protests in 2016 over
pollution by a Taiwanese company that resulted in one of the worst
environmental disasters in the country.</p>
<p>Despite sweeping economic reforms over the past 30 years that opened the
country to foreign trade and investment and made Vietnam one of fastest growing
economies in the world, its government tolerates no challenge to its one-party
rule.</p>
<p>Amnesty International says 97 people are serving prison sentences for
violating national security laws, while Human Rights Watch counts 119.</p>
<p>The Associated Press - August 17; 2018</p>Vietnam is most vulnerable in Southeast Asia to trade warurn:md5:b3bf22ccd61cde7dc57e3160d258d3432018-08-13T09:11:00+02:00Vietnam aujourd'huiNews in englisheconomyGDP growthUnited States of America<p>Indonesia and Philippines also face big risks</p> <p>Vietnam, the Philippines and Indonesia risk incurring serious damage from
the spiralling trade war between the United States and China, with Hanoi the
most exposed because of its high level of exports, according to analysis by FT
Confidential Research.</p>
<p>The biggest five ASEAN economies are generally better insulated against
market turmoil than they were during the &quot;taper tantrum&quot; of 2013, a wave of
panic selling induced by a hint from the U.S. Federal Reserve that it would
reduce monetary stimulus. But they are unprepared for an extended period of
reduced global demand, which could happen as a result of tit-for-tat
protectionist measures imposed by the U.S. and China on each other.</p>
<p>While export-driven Vietnam is the most directly exposed to a global
slowdown, the fragile current accounts of the Philippines and Indonesia leave
these countries vulnerable to balance of payments crises.</p>
<p>The White House has so far imposed 25% direct tariffs on $34 billion in
annual imports from China, with another $16 billion to follow on Aug. 23, and
the Chinese government has responded in kind. If this is the extent of the
trade fight, then the ASEAN big five economies need not worry.</p>
<p>However, these may be only the opening salvos. The U.S. administration is
considering levying duties of between 10% and 25% on another $200 billion of
imports, and President Donald Trump has threatened to tax all $500 billion in
shipments from China. He has also picked trade fights with the EU and other
U.S. allies.</p>
<p>As bluster has given way to action, the threat of an all-out global trade
war is now being taken seriously. Few countries would be immune to its
effects.</p>
<p>Vietnam's roaring economy - it grew at an annualized pace of just over 7% in
the second quarter - is by far the most export-dependent among the ASEAN big
five. For the 12 months ending March 2018, the country shipped goods equivalent
to 99.2% of gross domestic product.</p>
<p>To a much greater extent than its Asean-5 peers, Vietnam has relied on
exports for growth over the past decade, nearly quadrupling its shipments
between 2008 and 2017. The country's annual exports have reached $226 billion,
just $17 billion behind Thailand, the regional leader</p>
<p>At $43.7 billion, Vietnam's annual exports to the U.S. rank first among the
ASEAN five, making the country sensitive to softening U.S. consumer demand. It
is sales to the U.S., EU and other developed markets, and not to China, that
have propelled Vietnam's growth over the past decade.</p>
<p>The threat of serious trade conflict is adding to the pressure on emerging
markets caused by the strengthening U.S. dollar. Although the ASEAN five have
not been hit as hard as Turkey or Argentina, equities in all five countries
have sold off sharply, with only Vietnam holding on to many of last year's
gains.</p>
<p>The Philippine peso has been the worst performer among the ASEAN five
currencies, shedding more than 7.3% so far this year against the dollar,
followed by the Indonesian rupiah at 6.1%. Quietly, the Vietnamese central bank
has devalued the dong, which is fixed to the dollar via a crawling peg. The
dong is down 1.5% so far this year, and the government could take more
aggressive action if exports slow significantly.</p>
<p>Some currency weakness may help cushion export-focused economies such as
Vietnam, Thailand and Malaysia. They could also benefit in the longer run if
foreign direct investment shifts away from China as more companies hedge
against the risk of trade action. Likewise, tariffs on goods produced within
its borders will encourage China to accelerate offshoring to less expensive
ASEAN economies.</p>
<p>However, for the less export-reliant economies of the Philippines and
Indonesia, whose currencies have declined the most rapidly, depreciation means
faster-growing current account deficits and greater inflationary pressure.</p>
<p>The Philippines and Indonesia have been running persistent current account
deficits, making them more susceptible to currency depreciation and - in
extreme scenarios - balance of payments crises. For now, their import cover is
sufficient, with foreign exchange reserves equal to 8.8 months of imports for
the Philippines and 8.1 for Indonesia.</p>
<p>The situation in the Philippines is the more precarious. The economy is
being squeezed by a deteriorating trade balance and decelerating remittance
growth. The country has run a current account deficit since late 2016, reducing
foreign currency reserves by 10.7% from their September 2016 peak.</p>
<p>Worse, the trend is accelerating. Almost half of the country's reserve
losses have come in the past six months, a pace that could become unsustainable
if external conditions worsen. The Philippines also has the ASEAN 5's highest
dependency on dollar-denominated energy imports, so a weaker peso is increasing
its import bill.</p>
<p>Inflation compounds such challenges. The consumer price index for the
Philippines has increased every month so far this year because of rising oil
prices and a rice shortage, growing 5.7% in June from 3.3% in 2017.</p>
<p>In Indonesia, inflation is currently under control, but the country has run
the largest current account deficit among the ASEAN 5 since 2012, and its
foreign exchange reserves dropped 8.1% in the first half alone. Indonesia may
have a low overall reliance on exports, but it ships huge amounts of coal, palm
oil and other commodities, so a global demand shock would have an outsized
impact on its trade balance.</p>
<p>In a full-blown U.S.-China trade war, there will be nowhere to hide - but
some Asean-5 countries are more exposed than others.</p>
<p>By FT Confidential Research - Nikkei Asian Review - August 13, 2018</p>US citizen detained in Vietnam may be there several months pending investigation, family saysurn:md5:f25a07e9e07b52112fc65c0a84e404762018-08-05T17:03:00+02:00Vietnam aujourd'huiNews in englishhuman rightspoliceprisonUnited States of America<p>A 54-year old American missing in Vietnam for nearly a month is being held
by Vietnamese authorities, his family and a congresswoman announced
Thursday.</p> <p>Detained without charges, he is the second U.S. citizen recently arrested by
the government amid a widening crackdown on human rights and protests in the
communist country.</p>
<p>Michael Nguyen, a father of four from Los Angeles, was visiting family and
friends when he was last heard from July 6, according to his family. After a
frantic search, during which they were stonewalled by the U.S. embassy and the
State Department, they learned this week he had been arrested July 7 and is
under investigation for &quot;activity against the peoples' government.&quot;</p>
<p>The State Department declined to confirm his arrest Thursday, but the family
and their congresswoman, Rep. Mimi Walters, D-California, said that the U.S.
Consulate General in Ho Chi Minh City informed the family of his detention on
Tuesday.</p>
<p>Nguyen left for Vietnam on June 27, keeping in sporadic touch with family
through text messages and emails. But when traveling back to Ho Chi Minh City
from Da Nang on July 7, he was arrested under circumstances still unknown. His
family thought the lack of communication was possibly because of the poor
reception in a developing country or even the Vietnamese government shutting
down communications.</p>
<p>Although Vietnam has modernized and reformed over the past couple decades to
allow for some more economic freedom and human rights, it's still a communist
country with one-party rule. It now has strong economic and diplomatic ties to
the U.S., which has at times shied away from criticizing the government, to
steer it away from Chinese influence.</p>
<pre>
After the silence, a family friend went to pick up Nguyen at the airport on July 16 -- but he wasn't on the flight. That set off a two-week scramble as his family filed a missing-persons report and contacted the U.S. embassy, the State Department and the offices of Rep. Walters and other members of Congress.
</pre>
<p>But no one had any information. The Vietnamese government had not informed
the U.S. mission that it had detained an American citizen, even though they are
required to do so within four days. Ten days later, Vietnamese authorities
contacted the U.S. to say he was in custody.</p>
<p>Still, Nguyen's wife, Helen, and their family and friends largely were left
in the dark. Because of a 1994 law called the Privacy Act, U.S. officials
cannot give out any information about an American imprisoned without that
citizen's written consent, even to family.</p>
<p>&quot;We're really completely in the dark, with no information,&quot; Christine
Nguyen, Michael's sister-in-law, told ABC News last Friday before the family
was informed. While they believed Michael had been arrested, they weren't sure
if he'd been killed.</p>
<p>Nearly daily calls to the U.S. consulate provided no information, even after
officials knew he was alive and detained. But until a consular officer could
visit Nguyen and have him sign a waiver, they were unable to provide details --
instead even suggesting the family call Vietnamese detention centers in the
area, providing them with phone numbers to do so.</p>
<p>Christine said those calls were like pounding sand, with Vietnamese
officials denying his detention and giving the family other numbers to call, to
no avail.</p>
<p>Some relatives was able to meet with Rep. Walters's staff on July 27, which
&quot;gave the family confidence that locating Michael would soon be possible,&quot;
according to brother-in-law Mark Roberts.</p>
<p>But it wasn't until a consular officer was finally able to visit Nguyen at a
detention facility in Ho Chi Minh City on July 31 that they learned he was
alive and well. The officer reported back that he appeared to be in good
health, although he did request a medical evaluation, the family said.</p>
<p>Now begins the trying journey through the Vietnamese legal system. Nguyen
has not been charged with any crime because authorities are still investigating
-- a process that seems backwards to Americans, but that his family now will
have to wait through. That investigation could take three to five months,
possibly longer, the family said Thursday.</p>
<p>&quot;We ask the Vietnamese authorities to release Michael Nguyen immediately,&quot;
the family said in a statement. &quot;Detaining anyone without any crime being
committed, without any probable cause, is a violation of human rights and
international law.&quot;</p>
<pre>
If the recent past is any example, however, it should not take that long. Nguyen's arrest comes just weeks after another American was detained by the Vietnamese government, beaten and bloodied by police while he was protesting in Ho Chi Minh City on June 10.
</pre>
<p>A 32-year old graduate student originally from Houston, Texas, Will Nguyen
<del>no relation</del> was charged with &quot;disrupting the peace&quot; for
participating in a peaceful protest -- one of many in major cities across the
country against a newly proposed economic policy that would grant special land
leases or economic zones to foreign companies and, in particular, the
Chinese.</p>
<p>After 40 days in custody, Will Nguyen was convicted and deported for
disturbing the peace on July 20.</p>
<p>It's unclear if Michael and Will were accidentally swept up in the
Vietnamese government's push against dissent, or if that sweep is meant to
include some Americans to make an example out of them.</p>
<p>Either way, it's not likely that Vietnam will detain Michael Nguyen long
term, if only to save itself a headache from American officials. Unfortunately,
the same cannot be said for Vietnamese citizens.</p>
<p>By Conor Finnegan - ABC News - August 3, 2018</p>Vietnam to deport american after public disorder convictionurn:md5:8aef5a0483663dd899eefc7cea97b2c22018-07-20T09:26:00+02:00Vietnam aujourd'huiNews in englishhuman rightsjusticeUnited States of America<p>U.S. citizen William Nguyen will be deported after being convicted in
Vietnam of causing public disorder during protests in Ho Chi Minh City.</p> <p>The Houston native, arrested June 10, received the lightest punishment
possible after facing a sentence of up to seven years in prison, Trinh Vinh
Phuc, one of Nguyen’s lawyers, said at the conclusion of the morning trial in
Ho Chi Minh City.</p>
<p>U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo had asked the country’s leaders to
quickly resolve his case, and members of Congress called for his release.</p>
<p>“We are pleased that the case of U.S. citizen William Nguyen has been
resolved,” said U.S. Embassy Spokesperson James Thrower. “We understand from
the court’s decision that he will be deported after paying a fine. The United
States has no higher priority than the safety and security of U.S.
citizens.”</p>
<p>Nguyen was arrested the day after arriving in Vietnam as a tourist during a
demonstration against proposed special economic zones that locals fear would
lead to Chinese encroachment, and cybersecurity legislation they believe will
curb online freedoms.</p>
<p>The relatively quick resolution of the case underscores export-dependent
Vietnam’s desire to forge closer economic ties with the U.S., its third-largest
trading partner.</p>
<p>Nguyen’s arrest called attention to Vietnam’s crackdown on public expression
and internet freedoms. U.S. lawmakers have also raised concerns over the new
cybersecurity law that requires companies such as Alphabet Inc.’s Google and
Facebook Inc. to store data of local users in the country.</p>
<p>“Many people got surprised by the verdict,” lawyer Phuc said. “The verdict
reflects the care about bilateral diplomacy.”</p>
<p>Nguyen is expected to fly back to the U.S. in a day or two, Phuc said. The
graduate of Yale University promised not to contest the verdict and will be
allowed to return to Vietnam, he said. “Everyone is happy as the verdict
satisfied the expectations of Will, his family and the lawyers,” Phuc said.</p>
<p>Security was tight during the hearing as scores of police blanketed the
streets outside the People’s Court of Ho Chi Minh City. Barricades were placed
on corners and security told Vietnamese taking pictures to delete images from
their devices.</p>
<p>“Will is just a normal guy who didn’t commit any crime. He just attended the
protests,” said Ho Chi Minh City resident Nguyen Thi Hien, 54, who with a
handful of other curious Vietnamese were turned away from observing the trial.
“Will acted out of his love for his country but the way they treat the trial it
is as if he were a dangerous criminal.”</p>
<p><strong>Expressing ‘Regret’</strong></p>
<p>A court in the southeastern province of Binh Thuan on July 12 sentenced six
Vietnamese to as many as 30 months in jail after being convicted of “disturbing
public order” in front of the local government’s headquarters June 10 and 11,
according to Tuoi Tre newspaper. A minor was given 18 months probation.</p>
<p>Nguyen’s arrest was captured on video, and shows him bloodied and being
dragged away and beaten. In a police video broadcast on state television last
month, he acknowledged violating Vietnamese law, expressed “regret” for
disrupting traffic and promised not to participate in activities against the
government.</p>
<p>Nguyen had expected to receive a master’s degree on July 14 from the
National University of Singapore’s Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, said
his sister, Victoria Nguyen, who was in Vietnam for the trial.</p>
<p>Nguyen told his mother Vicky Nguyen during her 30-minute visit with him in
jail July 17 that he was kept with 13 others in a cell with a large window, and
wasn’t sleeping well but was teaching English to fellow inmates, Victoria
Nguyen said.</p>
<p>By John Boudreau &amp; Mai Ngoc Chau - Bloomberg - July 19, 2018</p>American protester faces trial in Vietnam for 'disturbing public order'urn:md5:8e4129a3bf0f72d42ee98ebb65ca38d92018-07-19T13:02:00+02:00Vietnam aujourd'huiNews in englishdemonstrationshuman rightsjusticeUnited States of America<p>An American citizen is set to stand trial on charges of “disturbing public
order” in Vietnam on Friday.</p> <p>An American citizen is set to stand trial on charges of “disturbing public
order” in Vietnam on Friday.</p>
<p>William Anh Nguyen, a 32-year-old Houston native, was arrested during
large-scale protests in Ho Chi Minh City on 10 June.</p>
<p>The demonstrations, which took place in cities throughout the country, were
spurred by a proposed law on special economic zones that many feared would
allow Chinese companies to control large swathes of land in Vietnam.</p>
<p>Nguyen, who stopped in Ho Chi Minh City on his way to Singapore to obtain a
master’s degree from the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, arrived at a
march on the main road leading to the city’s airport. Later that afternoon,
video emerged of him being dragged on to a police truck with a bloody wound on
his head.</p>
<p>His only public appearance in the weeks since was a confession aired on
national TV on 18 June. Last week, formal charges were filed against Nguyen,
and the Vietnamese government announced that he would go to trial on 20
July.</p>
<p>Vi Tran, a lawyer based in Taiwan who focuses on human rights in Vietnam,
said the charges so far filed against Nguyen could see him fined or facing
community service or a jail term of up to two years.</p>
<p>On 12 July, six Vietnamese nationals received sentences of 18 months to two
years under charges of disturbing public order for their actions during
protests in Binh Thaun province, on the south-central coast.</p>
<p>However, Tran said prosecutors planned to charge Nguyen under a separate
provision, claiming that he was “inciting others to be violent and
disruptive”.</p>
<p>According to Tran, this can carry a prison sentence of up to seven
years.</p>
<p>Officials from the US consulate in Ho Chi Minh City, as well as Nguyen’s
Vietnamese lawyers, have been able to meet with him as the trial nears. A US
state department official said in an email that the consulate was in daily
contact with Nguyen’s family, while a consular official will be present at the
trial on Friday.</p>
<p>Vietnam’s ministry of foreign affairs did not respond to a request for
comment. The acting US consul general, Hale VanKoughnett, declined to
comment.</p>
<p>Victoria Nguyen, William’s sister and the driving force behind a social
media campaign called Free Will Nguyen, said in a text message that members of
the consulate had met with him three times. Victoria attended Nguyen’s
graduation ceremony in Singapore on 14 July in his stead, and she intends to be
at the trial.</p>
<p>“My mom was granted 30 minutes with him as soon as she touched down on the
17th,” Victoria said. “He lost 6lbs, and has been moved to a larger cell with
13 people ... He couldn’t sleep well on the hard surface but he said the
cellmates are very kind to him.”</p>
<p>Tran said it was hard to predict if prosecutors would be lenient towards
Nguyen. “I am not sure if they will sentence him too harsh<a href="http://blog.vietnam-aujourdhui.info/post/2018/07/19/ly" title="ly">ly</a> because of the diplomatic relationship between the US and Vietnam,
but it’s very difficult to assess the sentence to be handed out,” she
shared.</p>
<p>Ties between the US and Vietnam have warmed considerably in recent years,
with Barack Obama visiting in 2016 and Donald Trump stopping in Hanoi last
November.</p>
<p>Last week, the US secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, conducted a two-day visit
to Hanoi for meetings with Vietnam’s leadership. Nguyen’s family had hoped that
this would result in his release, but Pompeo made no public comments on the
matter.</p>
<p>When asked about the reluctance of American officials to publicly address
Nguyen’s detention, Zachary Abuza, a professor at the National War College in
Washington who specializes in south-east Asian political and security issues,
said: “The simple answer is that the administration has very little interest in
human rights. It is a non-priority for them.”</p>
<p>While he acknowledged the improved ties between Vietnam and the US and the
impact this may have on the trial, Tran also believed the court could try to
make an example out of Nguyen. “It seems to me that they are trying to be clear
with Will and any other Vietnamese American that they would sentence dissidents
harshly regardless of their nationality,” she said.</p>
<p>By Michael Tatarski - The Guardian - July 19, 2018</p>U.S. lawmakers urge Google, Facebook to resist Vietnam cybersecurity lawurn:md5:4f8aa67edf11cb5a0fc3205c680d010a2018-07-17T15:41:00+02:00Vietnam aujourd'huiNews in englishhuman rightsInformation TechnologyinternetUnited States of America<p>Seventeen U.S. lawmakers have urged the CEOs of Facebook and Google to
resist changes stipulated by a new cybersecurity law in Vietnam, which critics
say gives the Communist-ruled state more power to crackdown on dissent.</p> <p>The law, which was approved by Vietnamese legislators last month and takes
effect on Jan. 1, 2019, requires Facebook, Google and other global technology
firms to store locally personal data on users in Vietnam and open offices
there.</p>
<p>“If the Vietnamese government is coercing your companies to aid and abet
censorship, this is an issue of concern that needs to be raised diplomatically
and at the highest levels,” the Congressional Vietnam Caucus said in a letter
seen by Reuters.</p>
<p>“We urge you to live up to your stated missions to promote openness and
connectivity,” said the letter dated July 12 and signed by 17 caucus
members.</p>
<p>Global technology firms have pushed back against provisions that would
require them to store user data locally, but they have not taken the same tough
stance on the parts of the law which bolster the government’s crackdown on
online political activism.</p>
<p>Company officials have, however, privately expressed concerns that local
data centers and offices could make it easier for the authorities to seize
customer data and expose local employees to the threat of arrest.</p>
<p>Jeff Paine, Managing Director of the Asia Internet Coalition (AIC), an
industry group that led efforts to soften the legislation before it was passed,
said the law had created “great uncertainty” for Vietnam’s reputation as an
investment destination.</p>
<p>“Vietnam will need a more progressive approach and smart regulations on
internet technology and digital services to benefit its economy and people in
the long term,” Paine said in a statement responding to the letter on behalf of
AIC’s eleven members, which include Facebook and Google.</p>
<p>Vietnam’s foreign ministry did not respond to a request for comment.</p>
<p>Despite sweeping economic reforms and growing openness to social change, the
ruling Communist Party tolerates little dissent and exercises strict controls
over media in Vietnam.</p>
<p>Tuoi Tre, a popular newspaper in the Southeast Asian country, was given a
three-month ban on publishing news to its website on Monday, Vietnam’s
information ministry said.</p>
<p>The paper published “false information” and allowed inappropriate comments
to be made on its website, the ministry said.</p>
<p>Tuoi Tre apologized on Monday and blamed a technical error for the lack of
moderation in its comment section. The paper was fined 220 million dong
($9,544.47).</p>
<p>Concerns over information control in Vietnam, underpinned by the passing of
the cybersecurity law, have driven some Vietnamese activists to seek
alternative social media platforms.</p>
<p>Bill Ottman, founder of Minds.com, a U.S.-based social media platform which
promotes internet freedom, said his website had seen a spike of 150,000 new
users from Vietnam since the cybersecurity law was passed.</p>
<p>By James Pearson &amp; Mai Nguyen - Reuters - July 17, 2018</p>Vietnam stands to lose from trade war between big powersurn:md5:949ec11cb5930bffd2ff95c22edd76032018-07-16T08:51:00+02:00Vietnam aujourd'huiNews in englishChinaeconomyUnited States of America<p>The ongoing trade war between the U.S. and China could hurt Vietnam if it
escalates and more countries adopt protective policies, a Vietnamese think tank
says.</p> <p>The Vietnam Institute for Economic and Policy Research (VEPR) has cautioned
that the ongoing trade war between the U.S and China is changing the dynamics
of trading in the world, and would eventurally hit Vietnam more than in its
exports sector.</p>
<p>Pham Sy Thanh, head of VEPR’s Chinese Economic Studies Program, said: “When
a large economy decides to protect itself, other economies will start to
imitate.”</p>
<p>Global trade growth last year reached 4.7 percent, but this year’s estimate
of 3.1 to 5.3 percent shows that even top economists are uncertain about how
the trading picture will turn out after this trade war, he said.</p>
<p>If this continues, multilateral relationships will be replaced by bilateral
ones, which will be a disadvantage for a developing country like Vietnam,
because stronger countries will have more resources and power to negotiate, he
said.</p>
<p>Another consequence of the trade war on Vietnam is that it will be
profoundly affected as global production chains shift.</p>
<p>As the lack of workforce is no longer a big problem thanks to the fourth
industrial revolution, “smaller countries will lose their advantage in just a
few years,” he said, adding that technology giants, such as Foxconn, are now
investing more in manufacturing in its own country, the U.S.</p>
<p>When large corporations no longer see the attractiveness of developing
countries, their capital will flow back to the big countries, and the abundance
of labor will no longer be perks for developing countries such as Vietnam,
Thanh said.</p>
<p>The U.S. has announced that it would slap a 10 percent tariff on $200
billion worth of Chinese export goods as soon as September. This announcement
came after it slapped a 25 percent duty on about $34 billion worth of Chinese
goods earlier this month.</p>
<p>China had retaliated “immediately” with a similar action, the country’s
foreign ministry had said in response to the first move by the U.S.</p>
<p>By Minh Son - VnExpress.net - July 16, 2018</p>American detained in Vietnam to face trial next weekurn:md5:e2fff2c8e13e265edbaf1ac6294af5502018-07-16T08:42:00+02:00Vietnam aujourd'huiNews in englishhuman rightsjusticeUnited States of America<p>An American detained in Vietnam last month is set to go on trial next
Friday, days after U.S. Secretary of State raised the case with local officials
during a Hanoi visit.</p> <p>Will Nguyen, 34, is accused of “causing public disorder”, the Police
Department of Ho Chi Minh City said in a statement on its official news
website.</p>
<p>Nguyen, of Vietnamese descent, was detained last month following mass
protests sparked by concerns that plans to develop economic zones by offering
land leases for up to 99 years would be dominated by investors from China, with
which Vietnam has a history of fractious ties.</p>
<p>The police statement cited the indictment as saying that Nguyen incited
people to protest and tried to overturn a police truck in the city, Vietnam’s
economic hub.</p>
<p>His lawyer is not immediately available for comment.</p>
<p>Nguyen’s sister, Victoria Nguyen, said in a letter sent to the Department of
State earlier this month that her brother was not violent and was a man of
integrity.</p>
<p>“I think we all understand that he is being condemned for something that we
all know is our universal birth right: freedom of speech and expression,”
Victoria Nguyen said.</p>
<p>U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo raised the issue during his meetings
with Vietnamese officials in Hanoi this week, encouraging a speedy
resolution.</p>
<p>Police in Vietnam arrested dozens of people following protests by thousands
of people in several cities, including a protest in the central province of
Binh Thuan that turned violent.</p>
<p>A court in Binh Thuan province on Thursday jailed six people for clashing
with police for between two and two and a half years.</p>
<p>According to Vietnam’s penal code, anyone found guilty of causing public
disorder may face a prison term of between two and seven years.</p>
<p>By Khanh Vu - Reuters - July 13, 2018</p>Pompeo raises issue of detained american in Vietnamurn:md5:482f312f6317e9ccb06d69091d33ceb02018-07-10T08:25:00+02:00Vietnam aujourd'huiNews in englishdiplomacyhuman rightsUnited States of America<p>U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo raised the issue of a detained American
man of Vietnamese descent during meetings with senior Vietnamese officials in
Hanoi on Monday, a U.S. State Department spokeswoman said.</p> <p>Pompeo was in Vietnam's capital to meet with the Vietnamese leadership and
discuss North Korea following two days of frosty talks in Pyongyang aimed at
persuading leader Kim Jong Un to give up nuclear weapons.</p>
<p>&quot;The secretary also raised the case of William Nguyen and encouraged a
speedy resolution to his case,&quot; U.S. State Department spokeswoman Heather
Nauert said in a statement.</p>
<p>William Anh Nguyen was detained last month in Vietnam's Ho Chi Minh City
following mass protests sparked by concerns that plans to develop economic
zones by offering land leases for up to 99 years would be dominated by
investors from China, with which Vietnam has a history of fractious ties.</p>
<p>Nguyen was &quot;gathering and causing trouble&quot; in Ho Chi Minh City and was
filmed on camera urging others to climb over barricades, the state-run Vietnam
News Agency reported.</p>
<p>Video footage of Nguyen shared on social media showed he had blood on his
head during the June protest.</p>
<p>The Vietnamese government has denied any use of force against Nguyen and has
allowed U.S. consular officials to visit him in detention.</p>
<p>By James Pearson - Reuters - July 9, 2018</p>
<hr />
<p><strong>Fate of jailed american hangs over Pompeo's visit to
Vietnam</strong></p>
<p>The fate of an American arrested almost a month ago during a rare protest in
Vietnam is likely to be raised by U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo after he
touches down Sunday in Hanoi to meet leaders of the communist government.</p>
<p>Houston native William Nguyen was detained June 10 during a Ho Chi Minh City
protest against proposed special economic zones that Vietnamese fear will lead
to Chinese encroachment and cybersecurity legislation they believe will curb
online freedoms. In a police video broadcast on state television last month,
Nguyen acknowledged that he violated Vietnamese law and expressed “regret” for
disrupting traffic and promised not to participate in activities against the
government.</p>
<p>The Vietnamese Ministry of Foreign Affairs didn’t respond to a request for
comment Friday.</p>
<p>North Korea’s nuclear weapons, China’s military muscle-flexing in the region
and closer U.S.-Vietnam relations were expected to be the main discussions
between Pompeo and Vietnamese leaders including Communist Party General
Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong and Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc. But political
pressure from U.S. lawmakers calling for his release could prompt Pompeo to
raise the detainment of Nguyen.</p>
<p>“It may not be the No. 1 item and you never know how forcefully it will be
raised, but Pompeo has to raise it,” said Carlyle Thayer, an emeritus professor
at the Australian Defence Force Academy in Canberra. “The Vietnamese-American
community have friends in Congress. And the State Department seems to be
raising these types of issues higher than it did under Rex Tillerson.”</p>
<p>The recent protests highlight simmering political discontent in the
Southeast Asian nation, despite having one of the world’s fastest growing
economies. Besides longstanding wariness of Chinese influence, protesters are
also opposed to a new cybersecurity that bans internet users from organizing
and requires companies such as Facebook Inc. and Alphabet Inc.’s Google to
store data locally.</p>
<p>Nguyen was accused of urging demonstrators to climb over roadblocks while
standing on a police vehicle on June 10, a day after arriving in Vietnam as a
tourist. A video of his arrest depicts a bloodied Nguyen being dragged away and
beaten. He was charged with causing public disorder.</p>
<p>U.S. consular officers have met with Nguyen, State Department spokeswoman
Heather Nauert told a press briefing in June. “We’re deeply concerned by videos
that show injuries, and the initial treatment of him,” she said. “We’ve made
those concerns known to the Vietnamese authorities.”</p>
<p>Nguyen is a student at National University of Singapore’s Lee Kuan Yew
School of Public Policy and is expected to receive a master’s degree on July
14, according to his sister, Victoria Nguyen. “I can only hope that Pompeo
makes it a possibility for William to receive his degree in person,” she
said.</p>
<p>Vietnam’s leaders, who are trying to strengthen economic ties with the U.S.
amid a fear of a global trade war, would most likely be receptive to Nguyen’s
release, Thayer said. “Getting that television confession gives the Vietnamese
that pound of flesh -- without the blood,” he said.</p>
<p>By John Boudreau &amp; Nick Wadhams - Bloomberg - July 7, 2018</p>US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to visit Vietnam on Sundayurn:md5:7df2e6d7beb4d54f1db4b9edaa9de3852018-07-09T08:19:00+02:00Vietnam aujourd'huiNews in englishdiplomacyUnited States of America<p>The visit will discuss ways to further the two countries’ strategic
partnership, as well as global and regional issues.</p> <p>U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo will visit Vietnam on July 8-9 to
discuss ways to further the two countries’ strategic partnership, as well as
global and regional issues, including North Korea’s denuclearization.</p>
<p>Pompeo and his Vietnamese counterpart Pham Binh Minh would join other senior
Vietnamese officials in Hanoi to discuss the two countries’ strategic
partnership in multiple fields, including politics-diplomacy,
economy-trade-investment, security-defense and relief for post-war
consequences, Ngo Toan Thang, deputy spokesperson at Vietnam's foreign
ministry, said at a press conference on Thursday.</p>
<p>U.S. State Department said in a statement that in Hanoi, Pompeo will attend
meetings to discuss shared commitment to the final, fully verified
denuclearization of North Korea and other bilateral and regional issues.</p>
<p>The visit is part of Pompeo's 13-day tour between July 5 and 12 that also
includes stops in North Korea, Japan, UAE and Belgium. This would mark his
first visit to Vietnam since assuming the position of Secretary of State in
April. Vietnam would also be Pompeo’s first destination in Southeast Asia.</p>
<p>Last year, bilateral trade turnover between Vietnam and the U.S. reached $51
billion.</p>
<p>By Phan Anh - VnExpress.net - July 6, 2018</p>Việt Nam to participate in US-hosted naval exercise for first timeurn:md5:a6265558b5c9115ffd8b1005176607262018-06-27T08:53:00+02:00Vietnam aujourd'huiNews in englishmilitaryUnited States of America<p>Việt Nam’s Defence Ministry has confirmed it will be sending eight naval
officers to participate in the Rim of the Pacific Exercise (RIMPAC) in Hawaii,
the United States, from July 1 – 31, at the invitation of the Commander of the
US Navy’s Pacific Fleet.</p> <p>It will be the first time Việt Nam has taken part in the RIMPAC after the
country sent observers to the event in 2012 and 2016.</p>
<p>The participation will be an opportunity for Việt Nam’s naval forces to
learn from other countries’ experience and improve its disaster relief and
search and rescue operations at sea.</p>
<p>RIMPAC is the world’s largest international maritime exercise biennially
hosted by the US in and around the Hawaiian Islands and Southern
California.</p>
<p>According to the US Navy, 26 nations, 47 surface ships, five submarines, 18
national land forces, and more than 200 aircraft and 25,000 personnel will
participate in this year’s exercise.</p>
<p>RIMPAC 2018 will be the 26th exercise held since 1971.</p>
<p>The theme of RIMPAC 2018 is &quot;Capable, Adaptive, Partners.&quot; Participating
nations and forces will exercise a wide range of capabilities and demonstrate
the inherent flexibility of maritime forces. These capabilities range from
disaster relief and maritime security operations to sea control and complex
war-fighting. The relevant, realistic training programme includes amphibious
operations, gunnery, missile, anti-submarine and air defence exercises, as well
as counter-piracy operations, mine clearance, explosive ordnance disposal, and
diving and salvage operations.</p>
<p>This year’s exercise will include forces from Australia, Brazil, Brunei,
Canada, Chile, Colombia, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Israel, Japan,
Malaysia, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Peru, the Republic of Korea, the
Philippines, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Tonga, the United Kingdom, the
United States and Việt Nam.</p>
<p>Vietnam News - June 26, 2018</p>